Would like to list items appearing in different collections

Beckengel
Is it possible to list only items that appear in different collections ?
  • dstillman
    I'm not sure what you mean here. You mean list only items that appear in more than one collection? (If so, no.)
  • adamsmith
    you mean in multiple collections? No. What's the use case?
  • Beckengel
    I do not understand your questin "What's the use case?"
    Could you be more specific plz. My IQ is very low...
  • mronkko
    "What's the use case?" means what do you want accomplish by listing items that belong to multiple collections.

    You can use advanced search to set up a search like "show all items that belong to Collection a and Collection B". You can also use saved searches.
  • Beckengel
    That is what I would like to do
    Would you tell me how to do that ? I cant figure it out.
    My IQ is very low....
  • Gracile
    Read this: http://www.zotero.org/support/searching#advanced_search
  • Beckengel
    I have read that already a year ago but cant do the trick

    "show all items that belong to Collection a and Collection B"
  • mronkko
    Which part of the documentation is not clear on that? What have you tried this far?
  • Beckengel
    edited March 28, 2013
    Well sir, nothing is clear. Nothing. Nor your replies. I think my questions cannot be missunderstood. Yet you keep on telling thing which do not exist. There is no filtering option to pick out only those files that appear in different collections. More than this I cant explain.
    It is better we finnish here since this goes just nowhere.
  • mronkko
    The documentation shows with screenshots how to set up multiple filters and describes that you can use that for collections as well. I do not really understand how else to explain this.
  • Beckengel
    I want a list of items that appear in multiple collection.
    F ex item A appears in collection A and B and C.
    But if it only appears in collection A it shall not be listed.
    Can you make a screenshot how to make the setting for such a search ?

    Yours very humble
    Beckengel, the humble.
  • adamsmith
    as Dan and I say in the beginning, it is not possible to show all items that are listed in multiple collections.
    You can, as mronkko says, show all items that are listed in two _specific_ collections using advanced search.
    (Create an advanced search set to "match all" with the condition "Collection -- is -- A" and "Collection -- is -- B").

    When I ask for a use case, I would like to know very specifically the type of scenario you need this for - in other words how are you planning to use that in your research. This is for three reasons 1) I want to make sure I understand you correctly 2) I want to see if there are maybe other ways to do what you want to achieve and 3) if 2) isn't the case, I want to see if I think what you would like to do applies to enough people to make it worthwhile implementing it in Zotero.

    I'd also ask you to leave your (and others') IQ out of this - I don't think it is relevant.
  • arggem
    edited March 28, 2013
    Let me see if this helps:

    1. Open the Advanced Search window, by clicking on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the center column.

    2. In the Advanced Search window, click on the black triangle that is in the same box as Title. This will open up a list of options. Select Collection.

    3. Make sure the next box to the right says is. If it does not, click the black triangle next to it and select "is."

    4. In the next box click the black triangle. A list of your collections will open up. Select the first collection you want (e.g. collection A as per your example).

    5. now click the + at the end of that line. This will give you a new line of boxes, just like the one you just worked with.

    6. Follow steps 2-4 only this time in step 4 select Collection B.

    7. When you have finished adding collections (remember, click the + at the end of that line each time you want to add another collection).

    8. When you have all the collections you want to examine, click search.

    This will give you all items that are in all of the collections selected.

    EDIT: Cross posted with adamsmith
  • Beckengel
    By doing as Arggem suggest will certainly find all items belonging to each of those collections, but will not exclude the items that appear only once in a collection - so it will not be to my liking.
    As said , I only want items that belong to MULTIPLE (i e at leat two) collections,period.
    Therefore I often need to update all my items and check them one by one. I do that by selecting and then Alt.
  • adamsmith
    if you follow arggem's suggestions, the search will only show items that are in _both_ collections A and B.
    For everything else, see my comment above that.
  • arggem
    By doing as Arggem suggest will certainly find all items belonging to each of those collections, but will not exclude the items that appear only once in a collection - so it will not be to my liking.
    @Beckengel, just out of curiosity, did you actually try my suggestion to see if it worked? Or do you just think it won't?
  • Beckengel
    This setting did not resolve my issue
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8197120/Zotero%20Collections.png
  • adamsmith
    meaning what? Presumably the search with those settings returned no items?
  • Beckengel
    Exactly. It did not return any items. But I know there are items in multiple collectons
  • arggem
    But is there one item that is in every one of those 9 collections?
  • Gracile
    Your saved search returns items which are in the 9 selected collections. I.e., if an item is in 8 collections but not in the last one, it won't be returned in the search results.
  • adamsmith
    edited March 28, 2013
    I have said this all along.
    as Dan and I say in the beginning, it is not possible to show all items that are listed in multiple collections.
    You can, as mronkko says, show all items that are listed in two _specific_ collections using advanced search.
    In other words, if you have, say, 9 collections and you want to list all items that are listed in at least two of those that is not possible

    What is possible (and what arggem and mronkko have pointed to) is if you have two collections and want to list all items that are in both of them.

    Beyond that, see my question on use case.
  • Beckengel
    edited March 29, 2013
    Of course I could check that two by two but then if you have 9 collections, how many combinations of 2 collections can you think of ?
    That is a question which takes us to math and far from a practical task for reorganizing my collections.
    I think there is a general need for this kind of filtering - I am suggesting to implement.
  • dstillman
    Noted. Closing this thread. Thanks to everyone for their replies.

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