fails - dragging multiple items to a collection

milstone
I can select a single item in the center pane and drag it to a collection in the left pane. However, I cannot perform the same task if I select more than one item in the center pane. This has been discussed previously with complicated explanations about different combinations of items that are and are not successful. I have also followed the suggestions about changing the Quick Copy Default Output Format, although the setting that might be successful is not clear to me from previous posts.

Am I missing something in the documentation? Are others able to drag multiple items to a collection? If so any ideas what I am doing wrong.

Zotero stand alone 3.0b2.1 and Firefox addon behave the same.

Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad-Sore Intel Xenon, OSX 10.6.8

Thanks very much!
  • dstillman
    Are you sure you're not just trying to drag items that are all already in the collection?

    If not that, you'll have to figure out some pattern of what works and what doesn't, since this works for most people.
  • milstone
    No. I was very careful about that possibility. I can drag single items that have not been added to the collection. I cannot drag single items that have already been added. I cannot drag multiple items regardless of whether they have already been added or not. And I am not trying to drag multiple items some of which have been and some of which have not already been added. The multiple item attempts contain no items that have previously been added.

    I am wondering if *anyone* else has had the same experience even though this works for most people. Finding someone else with this problem and comparing notes might suggest a cause and a solution.
  • dstillman
    edited December 26, 2011
    So you're saying that if you create a new collection under My Library, and then switch to the library root and try to drag the top two top-level items—regular items with bibliographic info—in the list onto the new collection, it doesn't work?
  • milstone
    That is correct - sometimes. I now have more data. Today when I first launched Zotero I was able to drag two items from root to a collection. However, after a short time I was no longer able to do so. I only hovered over the collection but did not deposit the items in the collection so hovering on my second attempt should still have worked. At this point I also was not able to move other pairs of items from root to any collection. Finally, when I quit/relaunched Zotero and the same two items were again able to hover so I know they were not permanently registered as deposited in this collection in the database.

    So this inability seems to be intermittent or at least not always present. And reversible. I may be doing something wrong here but the inconsistent nature of the problem makes it, as usual in such cases, very difficult to troubleshoot.

    Related to this: can two or more items in a filtered list that is displayed in the central pane by dragged to a collection in the left pane? This has never worked for me, not even immediately after launch/filter. This might be easier to troubleshoot because it never works.
  • dstillman
    Can you provide a Report ID after it fails, as well as a Debug ID for a drag attempt that succeeds and one that fails? (Hovering is fine.)
  • milstone
    "Report Errors" remains grey (unselectable) after an unsuccessful drag attempt. Therefore, I don't think there is a corresponding Report ID.

    Debug ID after successful drag of two items: D1681804372

    Debug ID after filtering and and unsuccessful drag of two items: D1990689560
  • dstillman
    "Filtering" meaning using the search bar? Dragging should still work fine from search results.

    But can you provide a Debug ID for a drag attempt that fails that doesn't involve a search?
  • milstone
    Yes, "filter" = "search".

    Debug ID of an unsuccessful drag of two items, no searc: D1568265727.

    Perhaps the following is my mistake. I am able to drag two or more items to a collection if the files contained within these items are not shown or, if they are shown if they are not selected in the center pane. That is, the selected items must be closed or the files within them must not be "selected". If I select one file within any of the selected items then the entire drag fails. Is this normal behavior? If so, can I show/hide files within all the items in the center pane using a single command. I can't see how to do this. Otherwise I need to click/rotate the left show/hide arrow of every item that shows a file. This is tedious, time consuming and most importantly error prone.

    Thanks.
  • milstone
    Related to this issue: if I "select all" items in the center pane only the items but not files within the items are selected *if the file names are dimmed*. These items can be dragged as a group to a collection. However, if a file name is not dimmed then this file is also selected. In this case none of the items can be dragged to a collection unless the file with the undimmed filename is unselected.

    I looked a bit but haven't found the significance of dimmed/not dimmed file names or how to control this parameter. Doing so would probably resolve the original issue in this thread.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks.
  • dstillman
    edited January 30, 2012
    If I select one file within any of the selected items then the entire drag fails. Is this normal behavior?
    Yes, it is. This is why I asked about the specific steps I gave you above (two top-level items), which should always work. From what you're saying now, it sounds like they do.

    Child items can't be dragged, so if any are selected the drag fails. In theory if all of a parent item's children are selected, that should probably be equivalent to dragging just the parent, but the test right now is just whether any child items are selected.
    If so, can I show/hide files within all the items in the center pane using a single command.
    Click any item and press the "-" key.
    I looked a bit but haven't found the significance of dimmed/not dimmed file names
    Parent or child items that match the search/parent or child items that don't match the search

    Note that in 3.0 there's a Title/Creator/Year search mode for the search bar. If you select that, you won't get child items in the search results.
  • milstone
    Thanks very much. Eliminating child items works.

    II am absolutely certain that I intended to test the issue of dragging child items and thought I had but since my early steps aren't documented I can't verify. I know I thought about child items and meant to eliminate them as the problem. I will post if it recurs. Hopefully I am wrong and it won't.
  • hairyson
    I think this is a bit of a bug?

    If I select several items that have child items displayed (i.e. the '-' is showing) then I cannot drag them to a collection. If I hide all the child items, then I can.

    Is there a plan to provide another way to place items into a collection, other than dragging? It would be very useful.
  • dstillman
    If I select several items that have child items displayed (i.e. the '-' is showing) then I cannot drag them to a collection. If I hide all the child items, then I can.
    That shouldn't be the case. As noted above, all that should matter is what is selected. Are you sure none of the child items are selected? Alternatively, are you sure the items you're testing on aren't just in the collection already?
  • hairyson
    Ah you are right, the child items are selected. But that is absurd! If I am to select multiple items, I will click the first then shift+click the last, which will also select any visible child items.

    I was careful to study this by creating a new collection, so no items were already in it.
  • dstillman
    edited January 30, 2012
    It's not absurd. In the general case, including a child item in a drag expresses a desire to do something illogical, since child items don't exist independently in collections, and it shouldn't look like it's succeeding. But as I say above (with a typo fixed):
    In theory if anyall of a parent item's children are selected, that should probably be equivalent to dragging just the parent, but the test right now is just whether any child items are selected.
    I've created an issue for this. In the meantime, just hit "-" to collapse all items and then do the Select All.

    (Also note that Select All will only match search matches (in black) and not search context rows (in gray). So if you're doing a search, as long as it matches just the parent items, Select All will work fine.)
  • hairyson
    OK then it's obtuse. Well, to me anyway! To a developer it might make sense, but to me - an end-user - it's unintuitive.

    Your addendum about search matches makes it even more confusing to me. What if I want my search term to include matches in child items, even when the search only matches something in a child item and not the parent (the most glaring example being a note I've made on an item)?
  • adamsmith
    What if I want my search term to include matches in child items, even when the search only matches something in a child item and not the parent (the most glaring example being a note I've made on an item)?
    there's an option for that on the search screen. It's very clearly marked.
  • dstillman
    OK then it's obtuse. Well, to me anyway! To a developer it might make sense, but to me - an end-user - it's unintuitive.
    As I say, it's designed to address the case where not all child items are selected. If a user is trying to place a parent item and a subset of its children into a collection, they're trying to do something impossible in Zotero's item model, and for the UI to appear to allow it would be misleading.

    That it doesn't work when all child items are selected is just a side effect of the above test.
  • dstillman
    Also, re: search matches, I was referring solely to the behavior of Select All. Whether items match a search makes no difference when selecting items manually.
  • hairyson
    adam: sorry I wasn't being clear. It's fine, I can search child items.

    Dan: I get what I have to do now, thanks for the added information. Just to recap: do a search, hit the '-' on my keyboard, then I can select all and drag away.

    I can imagine there was a discussion about how to handle this case; i.e. whether to forbid the action, or to allow it with the implicit understanding by the user that ALL children get copied regardless along with the parent. My vote would have been for the latter, but it's fine now I understand the behaviour.

    ps.: Is it worth me putting a feature request in for an alternative method of adding an item to an existing collection? Sometimes while dragging it's not easy to see which collection is highlighted during hover.
  • dstillman
    Is it worth me putting a feature request in for an alternative method of adding an item to an existing collection?
    Already planned, but thanks.
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