Feature request - Use distinct shade colors in "Duplicate Items" for selected vs. matched items

Rintze

I often go into the "Duplicate Items" folder to weed out duplicates, and delete the later versions. The user interface in this folder is a little bit confusing, in that matched duplicates and selected items get the same light-blue shading (at least on Windows). As such, if multiple items in this folder are shaded, and you right-click one to "Move Items to Trash...", you can't tell based on the shading which items will be moved to the trash, and which items are shaded because it represents an unselected duplicate.

Using different colors for selected items and matched duplicates would solve this issue, if that could be achieved.

Rintze

Somewhat related, the matched duplicate shading isn't consistently applied on Windows. If I select a single item (item 1A), its matched duplicate (item 1B) is shaded. If I then add additional items to my selection with control-click (item 2A and 3A), matched duplicate item 1B remains shaded, but the duplicates for 2A and 3A, items 2B and 3B, are not shaded. In contrast, if I expand the item 1A selection with a shift-click to include 2A and 3A, no matched duplicates are shaded (i.e. item 1B becomes unshaded).

dstillman

I think these are both misunderstandings?

The user interface in this folder is a little bit confusing, in that matched duplicates and selected items get the same light-blue shading

There's no difference between these things. When you click an item, all it does is select the matched duplicates. It's exactly the same as selecting them all manually. If you click an item, right-click, and select Move Items to Trash, it will move all the duplicates of the clicked item to the trash, because those are the selected items.

If I select a single item (item 1A), its matched duplicate (item 1B) is shaded. If I then add additional items to my selection with control-click (item 2A and 3A), matched duplicate item 1B remains shaded, but the duplicates for 2A and 3A, items 2B and 3B, are not shaded.

If you make manual modifications to the current selection with modifier keys, it doesn't trigger the automatic duplicate selection. That's it.

In contrast, if I expand the item 1A selection with a shift-click to include 2A and 3A, no matched duplicates are shaded (i.e. item 1B becomes unshaded).

That's not any different. The range for a Shift-selection is just based on the last-clicked item, which you can see on Windows with a dashed line.

dstillman

(Also, one of the main points of the duplicates view is that you merge items instead of deleting them, to preserve citations links and collection membership, so moving items to the trash is a bit of a strange example here.)

Rintze

If you make manual modifications to the current selection with modifier keys, it doesn't trigger the automatic duplicate selection. That's it.

Ah, sorry, I think that was what tripped me up. I was under the impression that selected duplicates weren't being deleted when using "Move Items to Trash...", but they are.

Can I file a bug report then, to make any change to the item selection trigger the automatic duplicate selection? I find the current behavior rather unintuitive.

(Also, one of the main points of the duplicates view is that you merge items instead of deleting them, to preserve citations links and collection membership, so moving items to the trash is a bit of a strange example here.)

I prepare a weekly literature update where I save new papers to my library, and invariably pick up some duplicates. I thought the fastest way to get rid of these duplicates was to go into the "Duplicate Items" folder, sort the items there by date, select the new duplicate copies with shift-click, and delete them from my library with "Move Items to Trash...". It looks like that works correctly at the moment, because shift-clicking unselects duplicate matches (although if you had a single item, you would still have to shift-click it to unselect its duplicate).

Rintze

I guess what I'm actually might be asking for is bulk merging functionality (e.g. with the option to merge all selected items using either the earliest or latest version of each respective item as the master). Although in my particular use case, merging gives me no benefits over just deleting the newer copies.

Or have Zotero alert me in the web browser that the detected item is already in my library, which would avoid this issue altogether.

dstillman

Can I file a bug report then, to make any change to the item selection trigger the automatic duplicate selection?

It's not a bug. The point is that it lets you refine the selection — i.e., to add or remove items regardless of the duplicate detection.

Batch merging is coming soon, and some form of notification during saving is planned (but considerably more complicated).

Rintze

Okay, thanks!