Feedback after using Zotero 6 for ~4 months

kmilgram

1. I absolutely HATE the new note editor!

   1. Although it does have the ability to store images directly, which is a very nice feature, I would gladly trade this capability for the old editor, which let me edit the underlying HTML for a note.
   2. With the old editor, I could compensate for the lack of storing images in notes by saving the image to one of any number of image servers, then embed an img tag in the note's HTML. Although this approach required having a usable internet connection in order for the note to be displayed, that's not much of an issue.

   3. With the new note editor, the inability to edit the underlying HTML of notes makes this Zotero far less useful to me than in earlier versions of Zotero.

      Because of this loss of functionality, I have started transitioning from using Zotero as my primary research tool to, instead, using it solely as a citation manager, which, to be clear, is still a very valuable tool for me.

2. I do like the ability to read PDFs directly from within Zotero more than I thought I would. I also like being able to mark them up from within Zotero.

3. However, because of the significant loss in functionality of Zotero's note capability (i.e., no longer being able to edit a note's HTML), I don't see myself using this capability.

   Rather, I'm reading my PDF's using Adobe Acrobat, which has had powerful annotation capabilities for at least 15 years now, and I'm writing up my notes using Microsoft OneNote.

   Having the ability to paste URL's into the Zotero notes is useful, because then, I can simply create a link from OneNote and paste it there.

bwiernik

What specific HTML features are you finding missing from your workflow?

kmilgram

With the previous interface, for notes, pre v6 versions of Zotero had the ability to allow users edit the raw HTML for the note. Besides being able to edit the HTML structure, such as inserting or deleting new elements and editing existing ones, a user could even apply inline styles using the full capabilities of CSS, which is very powerful.

I used to use this facility to format my notes to my liking. With the current version of the note editor, I have no ability to edit the raw HTML directly. Earlier today, I pasted an HTML table from one of my source documents. Somehow, the table became corrupted. Whenever I would even touch it with the mouse, the note editor kept adding new tables and rows inside an existing table cell.

After about 10 minutes of work trying to edit this broken section, I just deleted the note altogether. In prior versions of Zotero, I could have viewed the HTML code directly and easily edited it.

Even without irritations such as what I describe, I absolutely hate being limited to a couple of typefaces and not being able to edit line spacing, margins, padding, or font sizes.

As I've gotten older, my eyesight has started declining at a significant rate. The current font sizes just aren't adequate for me. With the prior note editor, I could easily fix these issues for myself.

Furthermore, with the previous version, I had the ability to wrap an entire note in a single div and then use margin: auto; max-width: 80em; to have notes that would always format consistently, regardless of my screen's resolution.

Also, today, I pasted an image that was about 1600px wide. It does not display correctly in reports. I have no ability to rescale the image using HTML or CSS.

Finally, in prior versions of Zotero, if I used systematic numbering for the first line of each note for a given citation, they would sort correctly in the main view and the report. Now, they sort correctly in the main view, but they seem to sort randomly in the report.

For all of these reasons, v6's note capability has become utterly unusable for me, so I've resigned myself to just using OneNote for my research notes and reports. That switch is a real shame considering that I've been a Zotero user since ~2008, and until v6, I loved the note-taking features of Zotero. Speaking frankly, with the v6 changes to Zotero's note features, I no longer feel a compelling need to stick with Zotero over Mendley, which most of my colleagues have switched to using.

dstillman

With the previous interface, for notes, pre v6 versions of Zotero had the ability to allow users edit the raw HTML for the note.

Right, we get that, but it's not relevant — the new note editor is no longer based on HTML, because the PDF annotation and citation features in Zotero 6 require a different sort of editor. We can implement just about anything in the new note editor, but things have to be specifically implemented. That's why we're asking for specifics.

If all you want is a note editor that lets you edit raw HTML, you have countless other choices, just as you have countless other choices for PDF readers with annotation features. The point of the Zotero 6 features is to offer a PDF annotation workflow that's deeply integrated into Zotero, from reading a PDF through to inserting a note with annotations and active citations into your word processor document and being able to generate a bibliography in one click. Perhaps you don't care about those features, but they've been extraordinarily well-received, and we'll be building further on them in future versions. And they're just not compatible with a generic third-party HTML note editor.

The current font sizes just aren't adequate for me. With the prior note editor, I could easily fix these issues for myself.

The note font size in Zotero has always been configurable, and it still is — you can set it from the View menu. Changing the font size would never have been a correct thing to do via raw HTML.

I absolutely hate being limited to a couple of typefaces and not being able to edit line spacing, margins, padding, or font sizes.

You can customize these things globally with CSS. Some of these things could become global preferences or formatting options, but it's absurd to argue that the correct way to address these was by hand-editing the HTML source.

Furthermore, with the previous version, I had the ability to wrap an entire note in a single div and then use margin: auto; max-width: 80em; to have notes that would always format consistently, regardless of my screen's resolution.

No idea what this is supposed to mean. Note display shouldn't have anything to do with your screen resolution. Notes should display consistently, and if they don't, that would be a bug that you should report.

And that's the general theme here. If you think something isn't working right, or you're encountering an issue when pasting content from the web, you should report it, in a separate thread, with specific steps to reproduce, so that we can fix it.

You have to understand that by virtue of editing raw HTML, you were in a tiny minority of advanced users, and obviously that shouldn't be a requirement for a satisfactory note-editing experience. So report issues or make feature requests and we'll try to address them.

Speaking frankly, with the v6 changes to Zotero's note features, I no longer feel a compelling need to stick with Zotero over Mendley, which most of my colleagues have switched to using.

You want a flexible, customizable tool, so you're going to switch from Zotero to Mendeley, a tool that was, in its prime, vastly less flexible and customizable than Zotero and is now a wrapper around a basic web library?

kmilgram

I'd like to see your data that these new features have been well received. Based on my original comments back in April, it's clear that I'm not the only one who was shocked about the sudden yanking of functionality (ie flexible note editor) in place of new functionality (ie a weak integrated PDF reader) that is already much better implemented by other third party tools.

As the developers, you can choose to tell me and others we are wrong when we offer constructive feedback. You seem hellbent on taking Zotero in a direction that makes it far less useful to me as research tool.

I've been an evangelist for Zotero for more than a decade. I give up. Good luck to you.

dstillman

I'd like to see your data that these new features have been well received.

Countless forum threads here, a year and a half of almost uniformly positive comments across social media, and a huge influx in new Zotero users? We've been doing this for over 15 years. Do you genuinely think we don't have a sense of how people are responding to changes? Do you not understand that raw HTML editing puts you in a tiny minority of advanced users?

As the developers, you can choose to tell me and others we are wrong when we offer constructive feedback.

You seem to be misunderstanding this. It's not about your being "wrong". I'm explaining that the new editor is no longer based on HTML and won't be going forward, so it's not possible for us to offer raw HTML editing. Complaining that it's no longer possible is not "constructive feedback". As I say, we can implement new features and fix compatibility issues in the new note editor (and we've addressed a whole bunch since March, directly in response to user feedback), but they need to be individually addressed, so you'd have to report them in new threads here.

Someone could also write a Zotero plugin that swapped TinyMCE back into the note editor, though there's no guarantee that it wouldn't cause problems on other platforms (web, iOS), and it wouldn't be compatible with the new PDF features.

But if Zotero is no longer useful to you — if a generic third-party HTML editor was the single most important feature in Zotero for you — then by all means switch to another tool that fits your needs better.

dstillman

(Though, yes, some things you were doing via HTML editing, mentioned above and elsewhere, do just sound wrong. There really are correct and incorrect places to make certain changes.)

hiloki

I just want to say I absolutely HATE the new note editor too!
The previously saved code highlighting is completely lost, because I used the Zetero to save my idea of coding.
There are still many problems in using note.
Why not make the original note a standalone new feature? This feature may have nothing to do with the pdf annotation, only simple html editor just like the original note function. I think it's a way to satisfy everyone!
You can offer a new attachment type to edit the stored note before 6, wich may be named as "html text".
The new note in 6 can be a brand new note called "annotation note".
I mean you do not to modify the new editor, just keep an old one as a new type of attachment.

waynerroper

For the record, I like the new note editor. After reading negative comments in this thread I am still not sure what specific complaints can be addressed based on this input.

If the complaint is that 'it's not HTML' then that is a weak complaint because other markup languages can reproduce a lot of what HTML does.

I would suggest things like:
- "Include an 'add image' button in the formatting bar to make it more obvious that images can be added to notes"
- "Add a font size editor to the note formatting bar"

dstillman

@hiloki: We're not going to have two separate note editors. I don't know what you mean by "previously saved code highlighting", but you should start a new thread and explain the problem.

@waynerroper: We'll look into adding support for those things — thanks.