Upgrade StorageA few full / separate Zotero window considerations
Much love for Zotero, but one thing that continues to annoy me is how cramped it feels & makes FF feel, particularly when trying to switch back and forth between browsing the web and browsing my Z libraries.
For one, I often find myself trying to get rid of the third panel (with the "info/notes/tags/related" tabs) to allow wider columns--might I suggest adding the ability to collapse/expand this panel?
I think some good would come out of revamping a bit how Zotero works in full-window mode. A more stylistic suggestion: at least in full-window mode it might make more sense to have the above-mentioned 3rd panel below the list of items rather than to the right. I currently use only the title, author, and date columns, but am constantly resizing them to view a full title or author list to effectively browse for a reference. (Perhaps multi-line titles could be an option?)
Another point along these lines is Zotero's behavior when adding a reference by clicking on the "Save to Zotero" icon in the address bar of FF. If the Zotero is not expanded in the current window (e.g. I frequently open a separate FF window solely for Zotero in fullscreen mode, and do my browsing in a seperate FF window), might it make sense to bring up a dialog prompting the user to what collection / collections (s)he would like to add the selected reference(s), rather than simply adding it to the (hidden) currently selected collection?
--perhaps a preferences setting: "Save new items to: [current collection | ask]"
For one, I often find myself trying to get rid of the third panel (with the "info/notes/tags/related" tabs) to allow wider columns--might I suggest adding the ability to collapse/expand this panel?
I think some good would come out of revamping a bit how Zotero works in full-window mode. A more stylistic suggestion: at least in full-window mode it might make more sense to have the above-mentioned 3rd panel below the list of items rather than to the right. I currently use only the title, author, and date columns, but am constantly resizing them to view a full title or author list to effectively browse for a reference. (Perhaps multi-line titles could be an option?)
Another point along these lines is Zotero's behavior when adding a reference by clicking on the "Save to Zotero" icon in the address bar of FF. If the Zotero is not expanded in the current window (e.g. I frequently open a separate FF window solely for Zotero in fullscreen mode, and do my browsing in a seperate FF window), might it make sense to bring up a dialog prompting the user to what collection / collections (s)he would like to add the selected reference(s), rather than simply adding it to the (hidden) currently selected collection?
--perhaps a preferences setting: "Save new items to: [current collection | ask]"
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Bryan PfaffenbergerI would like to second Ozydingo's suggestions, which echo my frustrations working with Zotero in a confined pane. To these I would add the difficulty of keeping a lengthy list of collections in view. I am working with something like 50 different collections -- I like to keep them small, so that finding a given source within the plug-in's citation add/edit windows isn't a chore -- but it is a tedious job to selected the correct target collection in the tiny scroll box within the pane. If I open a separate window with Zotero zoomed to fullscreen, either by clicking the zoom icon or using zotero://fullscreen, I can see most of my collections and it is easy to select the target collection I want. But because Zotero saves new citations to the collection that is selected in the active window, where I am searching, I still have to open the pane in active window window and select the correct collection, or my new citations might wind up in the wrong place. It would really be nice if, when a user opened Zotero fullscreen in a separate window, the collection selected in that window could be made to be the target collection by default for new citations in all windows.