lookup engines not appearing

realtime99
My lookup engines are not there. When I click the green arrow, the menu says 'no items selected' on top in grey, and the bottom says 'Manage lookup engines'. I click that, see the default engines, CrossRef is checked, but does not appear in the lookup engine menu. Checking/unchecking Google scholar and PubGet have no effect.

I have tried restarting, reinstalling, deleting the locate\engines.json file (based on an earlier thread). This problem occurs with both Zotero standalone and the Firefox extension.

I'm on Win 7 x64, Firefox 12.

Help is appreciated!
  • realtime99
    Solved it myself. Deleting all copies of engines.json on the computer and reinstalling both the extension and the standalone caused the menu to appear properly.
  • realtime99
    I spoke too soon! It seemed to work, then reverted to the state described in my first post.

    I removed everything Zotero from my computer, rebooted, re-installed, and still can't get the default lookup engines to show.

    Help, please....
  • adamsmith
    you realize that lookup engines only appear as an option when you have item(s) selected in the center panel, right?
  • realtime99
    Wow, there's two hours of my life I'll never see again. :)

    Is this sort of thing in the documentation? I'm happy to add it if there's a straightforward way. This is far from the first "obvious" thing I've spent too much time figuring out.

    The behavior I expected was that the engines would show up greyed out when nothing was selected in the center panel.

    Thanks!
  • adamsmith
    edited May 8, 2012
    We haven't fully documented Zotero 3.0 (the way lookup engines are displayed etc. is a new feature) and we're super thankful for any help:
    The documentation is a wiki
    http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/documentation
    Feel free to edit and create new pages, e.g. I don't think we document lookup engines at all, so why don't you create
    http://www.zotero.org/support/lookup_engines

    Small edits and additions - even larger ones - are always OK. If you want to re-write something that has been written relatively recently, better ask here on the forum.
    If you want someone to read over something you've written/edited and aren't sure of, also post here.
    Also, see this thread:
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/21657/30-documentation-whats-needed-also-volunteers-wanted/

    edit: change suggested new documentation page as per Dan below.
  • dstillman
    lookup_engines (plural) would be better.
    Is this sort of thing in the documentation? I'm happy to add it if there's a straightforward way. This is far from the first "obvious" thing I've spent too much time figuring out.
    Documentation improvements are always welcome, but I'm not sure what you mean by "this sort of thing" here. Given that (as you noted in your first post) the menu says "No items selected" when nothing is selected, it seems like the UI is about as clear as it can be here...
    The behavior I expected was that the engines would show up greyed out when nothing was selected in the center panel.
    The actions are different for different items and extensible, so that wouldn't really make sense.
  • RintzeRintze
    We already have (the outdated) http://www.zotero.org/support/locate, so I'm not sure we need a http://www.zotero.org/support/lookup_engines page. And if there is too much content for one page, maybe http://www.zotero.org/support/locate/lookup_engines makes more sense.
  • realtime99
    Although it may not make sense, since the lookup engines are selectable with check marks in the 'manage lookup engines' panel, which was the only selectable item I saw, I interpreted 'no items selected' as meaning 'you have not selected any lookup engines'. I would probably have correctly understood 'no records selected' since 'records' clearly would not have referred to the lookup engines, whereas 'items' is ambiguous. I'm not saying it should necessarily be re-worded, but that is why it was not obvious to me.

    As far as being extensible, I'm not 100% sure what that is. I assume that it's referring to aspects of Zotero that can be added in or removed (such as lookup engines), and I take it that your point is that menu items should not appear greyed-out when those items may or may not be actionable--maybe I am assuming to much. My response to the way things are in Zotero was simply based on standard Win 7 UI, in which all menu items are visible (ok, sometimes items are hidden for really long menus and are optional to display, but you get my point). So I expect to see all possible actions in a menu, not just ones that are actually currently possible given the program state / context. Perhaps it is not that way on Mac.

    By "this sort of thing" I just mean aspects of Zotero that don't match my expectations re: user interface. I am on Win 7; it may not be an issue with Macs. I put "obvious" in scare quotes not to be sarcastic, but because what may be obvious to others was not to me. Other UI items that have confused me are:

    When doing DOI lookup, I can right-click and choose 'paste', but nothing is pasted, while control-v does paste into the box (perhaps this is just a bug).

    When looking at search results, if I shift-click the top item and then the bottom item, all items are highlighted, but if I click one item and then hit control-a, then only results actually selected by the search (i.e., not the greyed-out items) are selected. I would expect these two actions to select the same group of items.

    When I use tab to move the focus to different areas, when the arrow to the left of the search box is highlighted, pressing the up and down arrows does nothing unless you first hit enter to make the menu appear. But if the item type in the info pane is highlighted, pressing enter does nothing, and pressing the down arrow doesn't bring up a menu, but goes to the next item type. Again, I expected the same behavior for the two.
  • dstillman
    I would probably have correctly understood 'no records selected' since 'records' clearly would not have referred to the lookup engines, whereas 'items' is ambiguous. I'm not saying it should necessarily be re-worded, but that is why it was not obvious to me.
    OK. "Items" is the term we've used, everywhere and always, for "records" in Zotero—for example, when you select multiple items in the middle pane, or in various context menus, or all throughout the documentation and forums.
    My response to the way things are in Zotero was simply based on standard Win 7 UI, in which all menu items are visible (ok, sometimes items are hidden for really long menus and are optional to display, but you get my point).
    Well, the distinction here is that the Locate menu is essentially a context menu, not a regular menu, and context menus do change. It's certainly less common to have a fixed UI element be a context menu, but displaying all possible actions (disabled or otherwise) for all installed lookup engines for all items would be worse. It seems the only real issue here was that you hadn't yet discovered what "items" means in the Zotero world (and you happened not to click an item for apparently a very long time).
    When doing DOI lookup, I can right-click and choose 'paste', but nothing is pasted, while control-v does paste into the box (perhaps this is just a bug).
    That's just a bug, of course.
    When looking at search results, if I shift-click the top item and then the bottom item, all items are highlighted, but if I click one item and then hit control-a, then only results actually selected by the search (i.e., not the greyed-out items) are selected. I would expect these two actions to select the same group of items.
    Doing the same on Shift-click wouldn't really make sense, since the top and bottom items could be among the grayed-out items.
    When I use tab to move the focus to different areas, when the arrow to the left of the search box is highlighted, pressing the up and down arrows does nothing unless you first hit enter to make the menu appear. But if the item type in the info pane is highlighted, pressing enter does nothing, and pressing the down arrow doesn't bring up a menu, but goes to the next item type. Again, I expected the same behavior for the two.
    Space bar opens the menu for both, at least on a Mac. Enter working as well in one can be considered a (very minor) bug.

    Anyway, these examples—like your original issue—still don't really seem to me to have much to do with documentation. That was really my only point above.

    In any case, I think we've pretty well exhausted this thread, but feel free to work on areas of the documentation you think can be improved, noting adamsmith's guidelines above.
  • realtime99
    Yes, if I was clear on the Zotero meaning of 'item', the Locate menu would have made more sense.
    Well, the distinction here is that the Locate menu is essentially a context menu, not a regular menu, and context menus do change. It's certainly less common to have a fixed UI element be a context menu, but displaying all possible actions (disabled or otherwise) for all installed lookup engines for all items would be worse.
    In Windows, a context menu (1) displays possible actions relevant to the item under the current location of the mouse arrow, (2) appears on right-click only, and (3) is not a fixed UI element. None of these things are true, I believe, of the Zotero Locate menu, which is why I did not think of it as a context menu. Is this not true of Mac? If the intent is to act as a context menu, why not actually add it to the item context menu?

    If it is to remain a fixed UI element, why would displaying possible actions be worse?
    Doing the same on Shift-click wouldn't really make sense, since the top and bottom items could be among the grayed-out items.
    The same is true of control-A. If I have a greyed-out item selected, and hit control-A, all and only non greyed-out items are selected. I would think that it would make sense to allow only items which can actually have actions performed on them (i.e. non-greyed-out items) be selectable.
    Space bar opens the menu for both, at least on a Mac. Enter working as well in one can be considered a (very minor) bug.
    Space bar does not open the menu for the item type in Windows (or for any Windows application menu, I believe). I would never think to use space bar to open a menu. It appears that one issue may be that Zotero UI is more consistent with Mac than Windows.

    In either case, for changing the item type, it seems unideal to have the up/down arrows change the item type when that field is highlighted, as the user cannot see the choices available, and cannot usually continue to press up/down because a warning usually pops up about losing certain field data.
  • dstillman
    If the intent is to act as a context menu, why not actually add it to the item context menu?
    All the options already are in the item context menu.
    If it is to remain a fixed UI element, why would displaying possible actions be worse?
    Because displaying "View PDF" for a non-PDF item wouldn't make any sense. (Think about it—if the options were in a fixed order, which the sort of menu you're describing always is, then the relevant actions for a particular item might not even be at the top, since there'd be a bunch of irrelevant disabled options above them, which would make for an awful UI. And if you were changing the order, it would be a context menu anyway and there'd be no point in displaying the irrelevant items grayed out at the bottom of the list.)
    Yes, if I was clear on the Zotero meaning of 'item', the Locate menu would have made more sense.
    Given this, I'm not going to discuss this further.
    Space bar does not open the menu for the item type in Windows (or for any Windows application menu, I believe).
    It opens the search bar menu, though. And space bar is frequently interchangeable with Enter when navigating menus—see "All Programs" in the Windows 7 Start menu, or the identity block at the left end of the Firefox address bar. So really they should just both work for both menus on both OSes. Ticket created.
    In either case, for changing the item type, it seems unideal to have the up/down arrows change the item type when that field is highlighted
    Agreed, and ticket created.
  • fbennett
    edited May 10, 2012
    In Windows, a context menu (1) displays possible actions relevant to the item under the current location of the mouse arrow, (2) appears on right-click only, and (3) is not a fixed UI element. None of these things are true, I believe, of the Zotero Locate menu, which is why I did not think of it as a context menu. Is this not true of Mac? If the intent is to act as a context menu, why not actually add it to the item context menu?

    If it is to remain a fixed UI element, why would displaying possible actions be worse?
    This is off the mark, but it does prompt a thought. You seem to have missed Dan's basic point, which is that the options listed in the menu vary depending on the content attached to the item (and other factors). A list of grayed-out menu items, including things that are irrelevant and impossible in the current context, would be confusing. It makes more sense to just hide them.

    You may be on to something with the comparison to other "context menus", though. The location of the locate button and menu is surely right -- adding it to the item's right-click hover menu would just make it harder to find.

    But when disabled, it could show a disabled version of the icon, with the same message it shows now, but as a rollover.

    It's a small touch, but might help someone coming to the system for the first time.
  • realtime99
    But when disabled, it could show a disabled version of the icon, with the same message it shows now, but as a rollover.
    Excellent suggestion--this seems to address all the issues mentioned on this topic.
  • ijstokes
    FWIW, I have also been confused by this. I have read the "locate" page. I have only skimmed this discussion thread.

    I am an avid Zotero user, but I'm in the midst of trying to sort out why DOI resolution/lookup isn't working. The "lookup" dropdown seemed like a sensible avenue to follow, and I was also stumped as to why sometimes there were lookup engines listed, and other times "no items selected" was shown. I tried highlighting DOIs and text in the active web page, or entering a DOI in the search box right beside the green "lookup" arrow, all with no luck.
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