Notes pane losing focus during typing

scottpowell

I am having a problem where in the middle of typing in the right notes pane in the Zotero interface (2.0b7.4), I lose focus to the main browser window, so that what I am typing is not recorded. Clicking back in the notes pane allows me to continue typing, but only until the focus is lost again.

To be clear, this is when firefox is setup to have zotero open on the bottom of a browser window and a webpage visible in the top of the browser window. I occurs with all the webpages I have tried (i.e. it is not being caused by a specific webpage), including the zotero site. This does not happen when I open the note in its own window.

Any thoughts? Sorry if this is known, but I couldn't find anything on it with a support search.

kithairon

Posted about the same problem (notes losing focus) here: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/9014/erratic-note-behaviour-together-with-search/#Item_1
I am currently unsure, where things stand with the issue. The link to trac ticket 1584 is dead, maybe this has been resolved and will be in the next build.

dstillman

Scott: Does this happen in all cases, or only when you've entered a search, as kithairon describes? If the former, and you're using syncing, does it happen with auto-sync disabled in the Sync pane of the preferences?

I've responded to kithairon on the other thread, so if that's your issue, we can continue there. (Also, kithairon, that Trac link isn't dead—the forum software was just including your period, which I've now edited out.)

scottpowell

Dan, thanks for the reply. I'm not sure If my problem is exactly like kithairon's but it does seem related.

For me the problem is re-creatable when I am in a Saved Search collection. I use these exclusively to organize my library, so I can't say how it works with a manually created collection.

The details (as I've now figured them out) are that the problem of losing focus on a note in the right pane, only happens when I am working on a note from an item displayed within a saved search collection. If I find the same item in My Library and start working on the note there, I do not lose focus.

So, it does seem to be realted to the search function in some way, but for me I have only seen it with saved searhces. It could also happen when working on notes within a quick search, but I don't typically do this, so I haven't noticed it. This is still happening in 2.0b7.6

I'll post back it I notice any more details of this problem.

z8080

I'm having the same problem as scottpowell, namely Zotero loses the focus of the currently selected library item, and so I have to select it again in order to continue typing notes or adding tags - only until focus is lost again, after a few seconds.

I've noticed this started happening since I upgraded to v3.0, although it seems it might be an older bug.

timtak

I am having a loss of focus control when I use PDF-XChange (great pdf viewer). If I search for something in PDF-Xchange's search bar then though I can move the cursor back to the notes pane, and though once moved, I can paste to the notes pane. Sometimes focus seems to be shared because I pasted to both the pdf (PDF-Xchange lets one create text boxes by pasting) and to the notes.


However, the keyboard input focus remains with the PDF-XChange viewer, even though the cursor is in the notes pane, so I have to move focus to another window (I keep notepad open) before I can start typing again in notes.

I am only have the focus issue with PDF-XChange so I posted to their forums first.
http://www.tracker-software.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=13222&p=58730#p58730
There does not appear to be many focus related issues over there.