iPad application

2
  • mronkko
    Porting this to playbook would be an effort comparable to implementing it from scratch. A clean implementation would be a better option. (I originally considered porting Zandy from Android to iPad, but decided that a separate implementation made more sense.)
  • jorge7582
    this is great! and I totally agree with the limited functionality for the first version. Offline PDF reading is what we need the most.
  • mronkko
    Just a quick update. I started submitting the App for review to Apple. I will test the App a bit over the weekend and then finalize the App store submission before the start of next week.
  • diegomaranan
    I cannot wait! :) And indeed, I just want to be able to see my tree hierarchy and read my files. (I'm currently using the workflow described on http://www.bobdeschutter.be/?p=498, which allows me to synchronize my files and annotations I make on them.)
  • mronkko
    The wait is almost over. I just uploaded ZotPad to the AppStore. It will appear online at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zotpad/id497260579?ls=1&mt=8 after it has been tested and approved by Apple.

    Also, I created a short demo video on my website

    http://sblsrv.org.aalto.fi/zotpad/

    I will probably make a better video later on, but this should give you an idea of how the app works. One feature that I did not mention in the video is that you can send files to other applications using the action button in the reader mode.
  • davidram
    Hi mronkko, thanks in advance for all your effort. I just want to know if the app will be available in iTunes Mexico. Cause I click in you iTunes links and it took me to us store. Thanks

    David Ramírez
  • mronkko
    The App is now under review by Apple and will be available in all stores simultaneously when it is accepted. The link is to the US store only because this is a link that the iTunes connect service that is used to publish apps to the App Store gives you.
  • imuntean@gmail.com
    It looks like an amazing APP. Good luck with the approval process. Do you accept donations? Great job and please add the features promised!
  • srufiange
    Hoping (and would pay for) for an iphone (universal) app even if limited at first to read papers and notes while on the road (and eventually add new notes and references). WebDAV integration would be great. Promising app!
  • mronkko
    No donations at this point, but at least for now I put the price of ZotPad at 4.99 euro. This should cover the costs of development and some future ideas that I have in mind.

    I started developing ZotPad as aun universal App, but eventually compiled it as an iPad app to make a release faster by avoiding tuning and testing the user interface on two devices. So you can expect an universal version soon.

    As for webdav, it is not difficult to implement, but I do not have a webdav server to test with. If someone is interested in allowing testing with their server, please email me at zotpad@gmail.com.
  • davidram
    Great price. I remember more than 2 years ago I bought an ipad in order to use zotero there, now this will be possible thanks mronkko
  • jmaddiso
    Congratulations on the release! So far it is working very well for me!
  • mronkko
    Someone seems to have gotten here before me with the news: ZotPad is now available in the App Store

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zotpad/id497260579?ls=1&mt=8
  • erleellis
    I've downloaded the app- great to see Zotero on the iPad!

    It is great to be able to read the pdfs- that works well.

    On the other hand, this app is missing two major parts of Zotero: browsing by collections within a library- and by tags- these are essential to making use of large Zotero libraries. Currently there is just a list of thousands of references that you can sort or search by author/year/title/publication.

    I hope that collections and tags can be included in this app soon- I would need this before I could give a good rating for this app.
  • mronkko
    The current version supports collections, but not tags. See the video here for how it is supposed to work

    http://sblsrv.org.aalto.fi/zotpad/

    If you cannot see the collections, please email zotpad@gmail.com and I can troubleshoot this.
  • philip-iii
    That's great news! I've been following this thread for a while and I am interested in contributing as there are a few things I need as well, and this app is a great start. However, I do not have a Mac at my disposal for the time being.

    The one thing I need the most is support for WebDAV storage. I saw it mentioned above and I'd like to know what the status is on that, since I decided to move to a WebDAV storage some time ago and thus it is pretty much essential for me. Unfortunately, I cannot arrange access to a WebDAV server, but you can set one up for testing purposes pretty easily in a virtual machine or even directly on your Mac. There are plenty of quick guides on how to do that, if I dig a little I may be able to find one I used.
  • netbuoy
    on to iPhone?
  • diegomaranan
    Yay, so happy to have this. At first I didn't realize that the collection hierarchy also synced. Then I realized that I actually had to aim my finger precisely and press the little white arrow in the blue circle. :)
  • mronkko
    edited February 1, 2012
    philip-iii: WebDAV support will be added in the next feature release.

    netbuoy: iPhone will be supported in the next feature release. It takes a bit more coding to support two form factors, so I decided to go with one first to make a faster release.
  • mijalce
    mronkko thank you for the zotpad and efforts you make!
    I installed it it on my iPad and I want to share some impressions and sugesstions
    - I think that the most important next feature you should make is adding/editing notes
    - sometimes the application crashes how can I send you a report so you can make improvements
    - you can make to go up in the libraries with swipe, and not only by tapping on the library button like the native email app in iPad
    - add sync button so I can request manyally sync between the ipad and the server. Like in GoodReader
    - add an option to download all the server content on my iPad. Now it doesn't download the pdf files automatically. Option like in GoodReader
    I hope you will find my suggestions useful.
    Keep kicking
  • marksample
    Great work on the first version! I'll be happy to test WebDav support, as that's how I have my attachments stored.

    I wonder if you might implement a "Last Modified" or "Recently Added" button along with the Author, Year, Title, and Publication buttons. I tend to want to work with the documents I've most recently added to Zotero, and it helps to have a handy way to get to them quickly.
  • mronkko
    mijalce: Send me an email to zotpad@gmail.com and describe what you do when ZotPad crashes. Also, send the userID and key that you can find on this page https://www.zotero.org/settings/keys

    Working with notes requires some more thought and will not be implemented in the 1.1 release. It would be simple to treat notes like attachments so that only one can be viewed at a time. However, I believe that a lot more useful way to do this would be to allow working with notes while viewing an attachment.

    Manual sync button might be implemented at some point, but this is not a priority due to the way sync works. (You can read a more detailed description on the website of ZotPad once I have it published later today.) There is already an option to download everything. Check the App settings. Downloading everything had a bug affecting some users of 1.0, but this is fixed in 1.0.1, which is now in review by Apple.

    marksample: I will add button for "Last modified" or some other way to sort by the fields you request. This will be in the next feature release.
  • mronkko
    I have launched a website for ZotPad at http://www.zotpad.com/

    Please submit all questions there rather than at this thread.
  • mronkko
    I wrote a post about different ways to synchronize files between Zotero and ZotPad

    http://www.zotpad.com/node/14

    Any comments would be welcome.
  • philip-iii
    I am not sure whether we should post responses in this thread or under the aforementioned post, but since I do not have an account on the zotpad website and I don't know if I can get one either, I am posting this here. As an affected party, my opinion is by no means impartial, but I'd try to put an argument for WebDAV. I think this should be the next step for a few reasons: simple cost/benefit analysis would suggest that it would provide best utility to most people at the lowest cost. From a usage perspective - most people that do not use the zotero file storage for synchronization probably use WebDAV instead, and thus are likely to have a WebDAV server already in place so not much setting up would be required on their part. From an implementation perspective - there are certainly a number of libraries for WebDAV access available already and there is a reference implementation in zotero already in place as well so that shouldn't be too difficult to implement. The only big drawback as far as I remember is group library attachment support which itself is a limitation in zotero rather than zotpad specific. I think there were some discussions on that already, not sure if it is ever gonna be backed in zotero for both political and technical reasons. As far as the other options are concerned, while interesting, they involve changed workflows and/or other hurdles that tend to get in the way. If there is a way to improve workflows then by all means, but substituting a less than optimal workflow with another less than optimal one does not bring that much advantage.

    One further issue that may be considered for future feature updates, and in a way also dependent on the solution to the storage sync solution, is annotation round-trip - meaning, how to get annotated PDF files back into zotpad/zotero from iannotate/goodreader/PDF-expert and the like. This is probably the subject of future discussions (if at all), but one possible option would be to encode an ID into the file name or metadata and expose an "open in..." interface so that when done annotating users can easily reattach the annotated file back into the correct library entry in zotpad and sync it with zotero using their synchronization method of choice. Just an idea.
  • mronkko
    I would like to keep discussion about ZotPad on the ZotPad site to keep it in one place. There is a link on the top right to create an account.

    I responded there

    http://www.zotpad.com/node/14#comment-1

    Generally, I would like to hear opinion or votes on which file transfer methods are the most requested.
  • imuntean@gmail.com
    edited February 18, 2012
    I just installed the app and i second several users about two features which I badly need:

    1 being able to read the PDF file I store on a webdav server (as opposed to those on the zotero server)
    2 being able to sort select entries based on the date added or date modified.

    Otherwise I like the app. Fortunately it did not crash on me (yet?)
  • mronkko
    Please post feature request to ZotPad site (www.zotpad.com) instead so that all the discussions are in the same place. Both these features will be included in the next release.

    Also, if you experience crashes or some other problems, please see the ZotPad site for how to report problems. I cannot fix a problem if I am not aware of if.
  • rarturo
    Appreciate the great efforts, but for an unfinished app it is comparatively (to other apps) not cheap?
  • mronkko2
    edited May 21, 2012
    Appreciate the great efforts, but for an unfinished app it is comparatively (to other apps) not cheap?
    What is the point of your post? You appreciate the efforts, but not sufficiently to donate a small sum of money for it?

    I am writing a bit longer response to this thread: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/10834/2/the-unavoidable-ipad-thread/

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