zotfile file folder and syncing with ipad beta

b.n.lawrence

Hi

I seem to have myself in a bit of a pickle in terms of working out my workflow with proper zotero syncing.

I have been happily working for a long time with zotfile managing renamed files in a specific folder and imagining that my webdav sync was syncing those files. It never mattered as I only had one mac, and the folder was backed up.

What I have now is that when i add a file to zotero, zotfile automatically renames it (or in some cases I do it manually) and moves it to a specific folder, at which point a piece of applescript picks it up and imports it into devonthink. That's all good. However, as far as I can see, the zotero sync function doesn't sync those attached PDFs because they're not in the right place. Is that correct?

If I wasn't to use the "attachment" folder, I am not sure how to do the automagic devonthink import, but if I don't use standard the standard zotero method of organising things, the files aren't synced.

Any suggestions on how to solve my situation will be gratefully received. I do want those PDFs syncing to the ipad (and now I have two macs as well) ...

adamsmith

You have the problem right, yes. No way to point the apple script at the Zotero storage folder, i.e. the default attachment location?

b.n.lawrence

There may well be. I might have to be cleverer though. Will investigate and report (eventually).

b.n.lawrence

(For anyone else finding this, or if someone else has a better idea. I certainly don't expect help from the zotero team for this.)

Currently the best thing I can do is

1) Index the source folder using DT3
2) Use two smart rules
- one to tag any PDF arriving in that folder
- one which is invoked manually to copy all those files tagged into DT3 proper and change the tag.

This has two nasty side effects. I have two copies in DT3 (one of which is synced across all devices, but that's not the one with the cruft in zotero storage), and it has to be done manually on the desktop.

There are two rules, because zotero first loads to a tmpfile and then moves it to the right place. That goes wrong with the smartrule if it runs on the tmpfile before the move ... so the manual step insures that doesn't happen.

There appears to be no easy way to use applescript to watch subfolders, and I don't have time right now to code my way out of it in a proper language ...

dummifiedme

I am in the same fix with Obsidian+Zotero. If I take all my PDFs into "Store" in Zotero, I lose my structure which I kind of liked. And the files are now locked inside a zotero system. I wish Zotero too worked on a folder of files rather than like how it does :D

New user. Less on the skill level. Noob :p