ZotFile - Advanced PDF management for Zotero
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@alv: I just corrected the function to preview the renaming rules so that it also works when an attachment is selected (I think that caused the '__FILENAME' error you got. That does not solve the problem of missing author data though.
Both changes will take quit some time until they show up in the official version. They are in 1.6.3 and 1.6.2 is still under review right now.
@alv2: I am not sure about the max author thing. Either I can't reproduce it or it is intended behavior. If there are three authors and you set max_author=2, the authors will be displayed as 'author1 et al'. As far as I know is that the way citation styles work. Or are you talking about something else?
It still works though, in that it selects the right PDF.
BTW, note the language here: it should probably be agnostic wrt linking or attaching (or tell from the preferences what I want it to do). My preferences are set to "use Zotero for renaming" and "attach", so the message seems inapposite. Nothing I can't live with though.
I don't really get your second comment. Can you elaborate? By the way, you can turn of the user confirmation in the zotfile preferences.
I do like the user confirmation as it gives me a quick check.
All my pdfs are arranged in different folder (sort by topic) (file are put in zotero with the attach link to file option)
So, when renaming, i don't want to "import" them in zotero folder.
From this link http://www.columbia.edu/~jpl2136/zotfile.html#install, it said to change the value of .import to false. I've tried it but nothing happen when I click rename (file not rename and no error message)
Thank you for your help
PS: sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language
So the problem i still here, renaming move my file to another folder
But if the files are linked already, you should be able to use the Zotero renaming feature. Have you tried that?
Mark: I can't use Zotfile option to replicate the structure, I sort my file by subject, not by authors or journal (if I could use collection structure it would work, but I've read it's impossible for now)
Zotero renaming feature work but it's not as good as Zotfile option (I use %a - %y - %s_%v_%e_ format and I add manually the page number at the end)
I'm now using Zotfile 1.6.3 and batch renaming files and moving back and forth is fast and works like a breeze. I just used it to separate my pdfs from other files (html) into different directories by changing the file types and folders in the Zotfile settings and re-running the renaming. Just a small thing I noticed: When I remove a file in Zotero, it does not get removed from the folder. Not sure if this is a Zotero bug/feature or due to the changed storage place by Zotfile, but I wonder if Zotfile could check for orphaned files and delete them. In the reverse direction, I could now (finally!) very easily go through my custom folder and delete e.g. all html files that got imported automatically by Zotero. Does anyone know of a tool to automatically remove links to missing files from the Zotero data base?
Cheers
Stan
It is a zotero feature. zotfile has nothing to do with removing attachments from the zotero library. The change of the storage place also doesn't affect zotero's behavior. What might matter is whether the attachment is imported or linked. I think that zotero deletes imported attachment files from the hard drive when the zotero item is removed from the trash. I am not sure what zotero does with linked attachments once they are removed from the trash. So if you change from an imported to a linked attachment using zotfile, zotero might treat the file differently. But that is clearly a zotero feature (linked attachments, for example, also don't get synced to the zotero server).
I don't know about a tool to remove links to missing files from the Zotero data base but was thinking about adding an option to zotfile. That would basically prompt the user whenever s/he attempts to rename an attachment that does not exists (currently, the attachment is just skipped).
Felipe.
I also once had a huge collection of PDFs in folders, reasonably well-organized by topic etc. But I realized that Zotero allows me (1) to incorporate all those PDFs as attachments to the bibliographic items they belong to and (2) to organize these items in collections entirely to my liking. The good thing about Zotero collections is that they are virtual and allow entries to be filed in multiple folders. They are also recursive and perfectly searchable for more metadata than the filename could ever contain. That, compared with the tagging system, is really everything I need for organizing my references. I've never looked back to file manager-based way of organizing things.
Of course, Zotfile allows you to combine the best of both worlds — to some extent. But the degree of customization you're willing to go through seems to me to be best addressed by doing it in your database of bibliographic items, not your pile of PDFs.
But i would like to use the subfolder-organizer with year/first letter of author-name.
it works for journals...but not for patents. if i use the date-template for the patents(%u?) then i get an "undefined" folder if using this rule with journals...
can this be fixed in some way please?
I think the important one is the "issue date"
I would like to have one "template" witch can use both date fields, since i use the publication year in my subfolder-structure. so your sugestion would make sense :)
thank you
so %y uses now the date from "journals" as well as the "issue date" of patents? *just want to get it right ^^)
if item type is patent, %y = year from the 'issue date' field
(I think that the 'date' field is not defined for patents. If someone tells me otherwise, I will change this rule)
Is that clear?
So it sounds perfect to me :) thank you very much.
So, there would be an option which said "just copy these files to directory X". Once copied, they'd have no connection to Zotero but I'd have all my PDFs in a single directory which I can then download to other environments for other purposes?
Thanks for a great plug-in!
(a) import the attachments (set destination to 'Attach stored file of file(s)' in the preference dialog) so that they are synced and then create a saved search for all files (or just pdfs) in the zotero storage folder. Setting up a saved search is discussed somewhere in this forum.
(b) Import the attachments (set destination to 'Attach stored file of file(s)' in the preference dialog) and then misuse Zotfile Reader in background mode to move the files you want to a specific folder while keeping a copy stored in zotero for syncing.
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/18737/zotfile-reader-zotero-plugin-to-work-with-tablet-ipad-android-tablets-etc/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zotfile/versions/
New Features in 1.6.4
- Compatible with Zotero Standalone
(for instructions see http://www.columbia.edu/~jpl2136/zotfile.html#install)
- restore selection after renaming of attachments
- cleaned preference window
- %y is now the issue date for patents
- Bug resolved: Rename Existing Attachment created 2 as a suffix if filename did not changed
You rock! I was just thinking that I wouldn't be able to use Zotero Standalone as my main Zotero tool because there wasn't a version of Zotfile for it.
Thanks!
Tom