Features that were enabled via being able to edit raw HTML in previous versions of Zotero

kmilgram · April 6, 2022

^{This thread was forked from a previous comment: Zotero 6 Note Editor HTML View.}

Specifically, being able to highlight regions of a PDF attachment in different colors, as well as adding notes to these annotations and being able to use Zotero's native tagging functionality has given me a lot to think about it.

I will probably miss some of the raw HTML editing flexibility of the old note editor, but, perhaps with these new features, my usage habits will change.

One of the most valuable elements of being able to edit the raw HTML was the ability to create a container div around a note's content, then using the style property to specify the min-width and max-width settings, as well as the padding and margin settings. With the margin setting, the most valuable aspect of it was being able to have the content block automatically center itself via the margin-left: auto and margin-right: auto settings. This functionality is very helpful when switching between displays of very different sizes.

Finally, one related useful setting was being able to specify font sizes using em units, as opposed to fixed point sizes. Here's an example: font-size: 1.25em;

dstillman · August 15, 2022

@kmilgram: If you're still interested in discussing this, I'm really not understanding what you're trying to do here. What exactly are you saying is wrong by default when you switch between displays of different sizes? Can you take some screenshots, upload them somewhere, and provide a link?

As best as I can tell, you seem to be talking about the margins of the note editor. That's a property of the editor itself, and it's just totally wrong to think of that as something that should require editing of the raw HTML of each individual note. (Honestly, your usage of Zotero before Zotero 6 sounds quite tedious.) You can either customize this using custom note-editor CSS or, if you clarify what you're trying to accomplish, we can discuss whether it makes sense as a built-in option or there's just some sort of UI bug that should be fixed.

I'm also not sure what you mean re: font size. Note font size is configurable via the View menu, or you can enter custom values (including decimals) using the extensions.zotero.note.fontSize hidden pref. Custom font sizes for parts of text within individual notes aren't currently supported.

kmilgram · August 16, 2022

Thanks for following up. I'll write up a summary with examples, which include screenshots, and post it here. However, the earliest I'll be able to complete that task is this coming Saturday (i.e. Aug 20, 2022).