New version of ZotPad (iPad/iPhone client for Zotero) available
ZotPad 1.1 is now available in the App store. The most important new features are:
- Works on both iPhone and iPad
- Downloads and uploads attachments from Zotero server, WebDAV, and Dropbox (Useful for annotating files on iPad and uploading annotated files back to Zotero)
- In-app user guide and support features
- Supports all attachment types (previously only stored files)
This release has been beta tested with about 25 testers and is much more robust that the initial 1.0 release. I am also looking for a few more testers for the 1.2 version, which will introduce support for notes and tags, and will be released in the fall.
Read more here
http://www.zotpad.com/node/48
- Works on both iPhone and iPad
- Downloads and uploads attachments from Zotero server, WebDAV, and Dropbox (Useful for annotating files on iPad and uploading annotated files back to Zotero)
- In-app user guide and support features
- Supports all attachment types (previously only stored files)
This release has been beta tested with about 25 testers and is much more robust that the initial 1.0 release. I am also looking for a few more testers for the 1.2 version, which will introduce support for notes and tags, and will be released in the fall.
Read more here
http://www.zotpad.com/node/48
More information available here:
http://www.zotpad.com/node/49
Software doesn't develop out of thin air. There are hundreds of development hours behind an app like zotpad. I doubt Mikko is getting anything resembling a decent hourly wage for his work on ZotPad by selling it.
https://twitter.com/markhlong/status/240504414492831744 )
More seriously, I did increase the price of ZotPad by about 50% between 1.0 and 1.1., but there is a good reason for this. Also, there will be a free version in the future. You can read more about this here:
http://www.zotpad.com/node/47
What adamsmith is saying is quite true. I have not counted the number of hours that have gone into developing ZotPad, but I estimate that prior to the 1.1 release my hourly wages would barely exceed what people assembling iPads at Foxconn get.
I was about to give away my ipad to friends because I just bought a android tablet. Now I am stuck with both platforms :)
The app does seem over-priced for the limited function it performs.
When you consider the price and functionality, you should consider also that the license is not time limited and will cover all the future upgrades (and user support, if you need it). If you think that the software needs more features, you can suggest these at http://zotpad.uservoice.com
Also, you should consider the alternatives. ZotPad does not what I need it to do, so there is very little reason to develop it further if there was no upside for me. Also, there are expenses that need to be covered. Of course, it would be possible to cover these with grants or donations. The problem is that applying for grants takes time that would be away from coding and people are not exactly lining up to donate money for software projects. If someone wants to take up the task of being a grants and donations manager for the project and does a good job in that, I could consider making all the versions of the app free. For now it seems unrealistic.
The upload process is described in the Zotero server API
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/server_api/file_upload#zotero_server_api_file_uploads
Because there are multiple checks in this process and ZotPad will never delete an attachment, the risk of loosing data is very low.
Is there any indication of when the crashes will be fixed? Do you need more information from me on my library or setup?
This makes me wonder if I am an unusual Zotero user in that I have very very few pdf's in my library ... mostly I am clipping passages from ebooks which I paste into a note, and also saving web links or snapshots from which I then clip material I may wish to quote later into notes.
I can use the Zotero bookmarklet to take webpage snapshots or save links and populate the item fields if working from a site that is coded for Zotero translators. Those new notes show up in Zotpad, but now I need to add child notes, which for web pages and books are the only way to "annotate" (for example, copy a passage in iBooks and paste into a note that is a child of the book's item in Zotero).
So for now I will consider my $10 a contribution I'm glad to make to your efforts, since I don't see a way to "return" an item to the iPad App Store (sorta missing Android here!), and will just continue to use the zotero.org site in Safari for my research work, but it would be great to have a revised estimated release date for Zotpad 1.2, looking forward to being able to create notes (unless I misunderstand the upcoming notes feature)
thank you in advance for your response.
kazar
PS: I wonder whether you are planning a feature to be able to edit items?
http://gizmodo.com/5886683/how-to-get-a-refund-from-the-app-store
ZotPad 1.2 will be released in the near future. I may be able to get it in the AppStore review before the end of the month. I wrote about it on the ZotPad site a while ago, but recent updates to the site seem to have pushed it off the front page. I restored it on top, but some reason it is missing the images. I will add these as soon as possible, but that may be tomorrow. I will also update the article with the latest status.
http://www.zotpad.com
You need to be more specific about what you mean by editing items. For my own workflow, editing items means roughly "Fix missing page numbers right before submitting a paper". I do not really personally want to be doing that on iPad or iPhone. Other people might have different workflows. Item editing has not been really requested that much, but if there is a good use case for that, then why not. Adding items will most likely be implemented in 1.3 and there is very little difference between adding and editing, so these might be implemented at the same time.
If you want item editing, you can help me by writing a feature request here:
https://zotpad.uservoice.com/forums/172475-general
I didn't realize until today that we can now add/edit/save notes directly on zotero.org within the iPad Safari browser ... so perhaps Zotpad ought to continue to focus on those users whose workflow revolves more around collecting and annotating pdfs?
So ... I could write up a use case/feature request for editing items and some other things ... but why duplicate functionality that works in Safari. Still happy to write it up if you wish!
Also, I will post any further questions or comments in the right place - the Zotpad forums (didn't realize there were any, sorry)
If you want to get a preview, the user manual is available at
https://github.com/mronkko/ZotPad/raw/master/Docs/UserManual.pdf
- Filtering the item list by tags and editing tags
- Reading, editing, and creating notes
- Adding items to favorites by "starring" them
- Looking up items in library and citation databases
- New file reader user interface with quick switching between recently viewed files
All features support offline use so that you can work with ZotPad for example on a train or in an airplane and the changes will be synchronized back to Zotero server the next time you get online.
Read more here: http://www.zotpad.com/node/57
The one feature missing that still frustrates me a little is not being able to see if there are annotations without opening a pdf in another application. This can lead to confusion and losing track of documents. Fortunately, my workflow has a tag for annotated document so I will just have to add that information immediately (usually I wait until it all makes it to my desktop zotero).
The ability to add notes is also great since I can stop using a third app for note-taking.
Just curious, how safe is leaving items in the upload queue when offline. If my iPad reboots, will the queue be preserved? If I am going to use the app to add notes offline, I really need to know that I can trust the syncing. I don't expect you to know that the app to be 100% reliable, but are you comfortable with trusting it to retain notes offline for most of the day until being connected again in the evening? This doesn't concern me with PDFs since I usually only send them back to ZotPad when online.
https://zotpad.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/170621-why-doesn-t-zotpad-show-pdf-annotations-and-why-is
To put it simply, showing annotations would require a third party PDF library. These are expensive, some costing more that the total sales of ZotPad this far, and this is the reason why one has not been integrated yet. But it will happen in the future. The app is designed so that restarting it does not affect the upload queue. (Technically, there is no upload queue at all, but it is useful metaphor nevertheless.)
The only possible problem that I see is that notes do not have conflict resolution yet. If you edit a note on iPad and the same note is edited on another computer or another iPad, then your edits will be discarded. Conflict resolution will be added in the 1.3 version.
My only (small) comment is that it would be nice to remove the empty space when there's no attachment, i.e. if you open an item which has no PDF/HTML, you've to scroll down to see the metadata.
am not sure I get all comment to my email. any thing I need to do to avoid getting those entries?