thanks for your help, adam.

the thing is, i am writing my dissertation on google docs, not word... in any case, you answered my question: i will need to write them manually.

thanks again!

but that's just not the way a bibliography manager works. The whole point is that you would be able to cite the same item multiple times - including different pages of the same book as well as the book w/o a specific page. Saving a specific page of a book as an individual item would just create a huge pile of nearly identical items, impossible to manage.

I like that - as a long term idea I could see putting a quote in a child note - by selecting the childnote in the plugin, Zotero could automatically paste the quote and the citation with page #

Me too. This would be very useful.

Seeing as this proposal seems to be quite popular, some additional thoughts:

- csledit.xul (chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul) already shows how the locator selection dropdown could work. When used in the right-hand column, the locator terms ("Page", "Book", etc.) can be localized using the term definitions in the CSL locale files.
- it might be handy if the locator information is prepended to the note title in the middle column, and that notes are sorted by a) locator term, b) locator value and c) note title, similar to what clio_13 already does with hand. E.g., the middle column could look like:

Title of Parent item
- [chapter 2] Important discussion about bread sticks
- [page 14] Arguments in favor of fried ice cream
- [page 58-59 ] Author likes apples better than pears
- General note
- Wholly different general note

I don't know - I figure it's going to take quite while unless someone outside of core dev codes it.

I'm a bit befuddled as to why this feature has been left out. When taking notes for writing a paper, it's essential to know what page of a resource you're taking notes on--when it comes time to cite it, you must have the page number! It seems obvious to me that there should be a field in each note's metadata for the pages of the work that the note refers to. And that field should be automatically used when inserting a citation.

I must say, such a rude reply does not behoove the Zotero project. Out of two forum posts I've made suggesting improvements, I've received two replies of the "submit a patch, genius" variety. 2 for 2.

Here's a few things for you to think about:

1. For those who wrote the code that already exists, it would be trivial to add another metadata field to notes. For someone unfamiliar with the codebase, it would take much time and effort just to get up to speed.

2. The point of this forum is to ask for improvements. If such requests are unwelcome, it would be better to close the forum than to chase away those who make them. At least that would be honest. If the devs aren't willing to take suggestions, don't pretend to be. (Though I'm sure that wouldn't sit well with those who fund the project!)

3. "Fix it yourself, idiot" and the like is never an acceptable response to a user. Try, "We'll consider it, thanks" or, "It's on the list--we'll get to it eventually," or, "Sorry, we're not interested in that feature--but we welcome patches."

4. Keep up that attitude and you will give the Zotero project a bad name. There are plenty of other solutions I could use. Do you want Zotero to grow? Or are you an elitist, hoping to keep away the riffraff (as defined by you)? Academia has enough trouble with elitism already--I suggest Zotero do whatever it can to avoid it.

5. Let's be good to one another, eh? I didn't attack you, adamsmith, so there's no need for you to get defensive.

I see the biggest obstacle here being storage and propagation of the metadata. A change like this has to happen in about 6 places: the note UI in Zotero, the local sqlite database, the sync protocol, the zotero.org library view, and the server API. The interconnection here can really slow down progress at times.

But I am interested in seeing this (as is adamsmith, another Zotero user and not an employee of CHNM and the project). This will probably have to be done by someone outside of the paid project staff, simply because Zotero only has 2 paid developers regularly working on it. Fortunately, a small group of community members has taken to writing new features, so there are now some additional people with the knowledge to make this happen (I'm almost one of them).

Hi everybody!
Just in case anyone would like to know: I just need that field for pagenumbers too ;)

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/25983/new-element-quote-with-fields-like-title-page-number-book-

http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/25982/page-number-field-for-quotation

I am not a programmer and do not now much about citation. For me just a field to enter the page number would do the job. I collect quotations from books as notes. I help myself by prepending something like "0045-0046 title of the quote" for the page number where I can find this quote.

Cheers,
Thomas

that's actually much easier and doesn't require switching to the classic view:
http://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_usage#inserting_and_editing_citations
but people here are talking about an additional "page" field for notes.

OK - I don't want to beat a dead horse here. I am not a code developer, but I have used several databases from the frontend and I have a VERY basic idea regarding algorithms. I have also used other citation managers extensively. I have the same page number request. Unfortunately, the learning curve needed for me to alter Zotero code would be too great for me to tackle.

I discovered Zotero a few years ago and I have loved the look, feel, and functionality, however, I have continued to use Citation 9 to manage my bibliographic and notecard info for one reason - the ability to keep track of page numbers when I add a citation. The problem is that it doesn't appear that they make citation any longer - or at least it isn't supported.

Maybe I am simply trying to use Zotero for something it wasn't designed, but when I am doing research I think of a citation manager as if it were an electronic (and smarter version) of the old 3x5 index card notes. I don't remember what page number information came from. Sure, I could add it in the note section, but if I choose to drag/drop the quote, then it adds the page number as well - requiring me to delete the page number and add it to the citation.

I am in the process of starting back to grad school and it would be nice to have one repository for my readings.

Any help will be appreciated.

Joe

I would also love to see a page number field as metadata for notes. Until that arrives I will continue my current practice of typing "p. 001" (e.g.) as the fist line of my notes.