Date range issue with Zotero updates

anton.deik
Hello!

I have a number of resources with a date range (for example: 1994-1998). Since the Zotero date field does not support range, I have been using the Extra field, as follows: issued: 1994/1998. This has worked fine. However, every time I receive a Zotero update, all dates inserted this way go back to the Date field (e.g. the 1994/1998 will jump back automatically to the date field). Because the date field does not accept range, I only see the first part of the year in the Word doc I am working with. After every Zotero update, I need to place the dates back again in the extra field.

Could anyone please help me with this?

Tony
  • bwiernik
    @dstillman Is automatic field migration expected to be on at this point? It probably shouldn’t migrate issued until the native date parser is better
  • emilianoeheyns
    My date parser is here. Euphemistically I'd say this has grown organically so as to avoid saying it's a hodgepodge, but it works well.

    How about highlighting non-EDTF dates in the UI in some way so users would get a prompt to correct the date (where possible), and have the dateparser try EDTF before anything else? That would solve Anton's problem I think. Although there are a few edge cases where informally entered date ranges are valid single-date EDTF dates.
  • dunning
    This also happened to me with the 6.0.15 update. Fortunately, Better BibTeX is able to render date ranges whether or not they are in the Extra field, but I don't know how to advise colleagues who use Zotero directly.

    Has provision been made to ensure that a future update does not normalize these to the first date in the range, as the current version of Zotero itself is interpreting them?
  • kberntse
    Hi, does anyone know if this is this still a problem, or can I go about and use the solution above for date ranges (issued: in the Extra field) without worrying that it will change back after an update?
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