Right-click on ISBN gives the option of saving to Zotero

jim0203
When I point my browser at a page on a website that Zotero "knows" about - e.g., Amazon, Worldcat, etc - I'm given the option of saving that page to Zotero.

It would be great if this functionality could be extended to cover any ISBN on any webpage. Right-clicking the ISBN would bring up a standard contextual menu, which would include the option to "Save to Zotero..."
  • ajlyon
    That's a bit harder. You do know about the magic wand / identifier lookup in Zotero? http://www.zotero.org/support/getting_stuff_into_your_library#add_item_by_identifier
  • dstillman
    edited April 17, 2012
    Other than lookup, there'd be two ways to do this: via a translator that runs on every page, as we do for DOIs, and via right-click. We could do, either, really—or both—but we'd have to verify the check digits, since ISBNs otherwise can't be reliably identified the way DOIs can be.
  • ajlyon
    I did modify the DOI translator at one point to check for ISBNs as well (yes, including check digits), but was unhappy with the number of false positives. We would have to only do ISBN-13, which has a tolerably small number of false positives; if that's something we want, I have working code already for it somewhere.
  • dstillman
    We could require "ISBN" (and optionally some punctuation) before it. It seems like with ISBNs that's going to be there the vast majority of the time (with table-based layouts being one exception).

    Doing it via the context menu—showing the option only when the check digit passed—would be pretty easy. We have an old ticket for it.
  • ajlyon
    I think that requiring ISBN or the 978 prefix that marks ISBN-13 would be a decent start. If someone wants to take the context menu and run with it, I have a fairly rigorously tested ISBN validator in JS that can be plugged into it: https://github.com/ajlyon/identifiers-js
  • jim0203
    Thanks for showing interest in my idea, I look forward to seeing it realised :)
  • joshuarbholden
    I second the request for using the context menu --- as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't have to do any more validation than the magic wand does. Just saves a cut-and-paste step.
  • ria3k
    If I may, the ticket for this enhancement looks like it was opened four years ago and last modified two years ago, but not yet resolved. If I'm missing something, my apologies. If not, seems like a long time to wait for an improvement that should be relatively simple to implement, yet with results that are extremely powerful to users.

    It would allow users to circumvent translators they don't like, or operate effectively where none exist. The user knows when she sees an ISBN -- she highlights it, right-clicks, and voila, import happens (in all likelihood) with reliable data via an LoC lookup. What could be better than that? No cut-and-paste, switching windows, etc.

    Short story: Getting this into an update of Z soon seems like a lot of bang for your buck.

    While we're on the subject, I'm wondering why Z doesn't allow for batch-processing of identifiers (an import option akin to the magic wand that accepts multiple identifiers rather than one at a time). That too would eliminate many, many keystrokes and mouse clicks for a user who is importing, say, a lot of ISBNs at once. Often, those are new users rebuilding their preexisting libraries from other platforms who, presumably, you would be enticing all the more to adopt Zotero.
  • Gracile
    I'm wondering why Z doesn't allow for batch-processing of identifiers
    It will be possible in the next major release (3.1 or 3.5), cf. https://github.com/zotero/zotero/pull/164
  • adamsmith
    I don't think most people view this as super high priority since you can do this very quickly by copy&pasting the ISBN into the add identifier window, but as ajlyon and Dan say above, help/patches are welcome. There are a lot of open tickets that are many years old - it's faster to come up with ideas for functionality than to write the code ;-).

    Batch entry, which I think is a much bigger potential time-saver, is already coded, the patch for it is here:
    https://github.com/zotero/zotero/pull/164
    and I'd expect it to make it into the next major Zotero release (3.1/3.5).
  • ria3k
    Thanks for these replies, especially the link on batch processing. One reason I think these suggested features are complementary -- but distinct and equally powerful -- is that unless you already have an existing batch of identifiers to process, you're probably still copy-and-pasting and moving constantly between windows, even to build the batch.

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