please add better integration with Scrivener

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  • nturcan
    Will be odf-scan in the next Zotero release? Will be rtf-scan replaced by odf-scan?
  • adamsmith
    we definitely won't replace rtf-scan.
    The main feature to port would be the drag&drop with item codes. That's not currently in the development branch for the next release, I don't think it's very likely for 3.1 anymore at this point, though it still is very likely to make it into Zotero.
  • paultroop
    It would be great if you guys could get the odf scan into vanilla Zotero soon. The added functionality would be huge, both in terms of using a wider range of programs, and to allow proper outlining.

    What does it depend on? Surely the code has already been written for MLZ Zotero by Frank? Is it terribly complex to incorporate the drag-and-drop citation keys in the next Zotero update?
  • adamsmith
    not terribly complex, but also non-trivial because the MLZ code has become quite distinct in some places. Frank thought he could do it quickly, but it turned out to be more complex than expected. It's almost certainly not going to make it in the next version, but the one after that is likely going to be released more quickly.
  • fbennett
    I have extracted the patch against MLZ, at least. After I get MLZ current with the new 4.0 version of Zotero I should be able to work out a patch against the official Zotero source, as a starting point for review.
  • paultroop
    Thanks to you all for your work and commitment to this. I'm really looking forward to seeing it realised.
  • epederick
    Hi, I've just recently come across Scrivener and am a convert, so very interested in this discussion. Can I add my voice to those asking for stronger Zotero RTF scan and/or ODF scan in 'vanilla' Zotero. As a non-computer nerd a lot of the discussion is over my head unfortunately, but from what I gather of MLZ I am loathe to migrate to it just yet. Think I might wait and see what eventuates on this forum, but meanwhile I have a clumsy end-user workaround to the problem of ambiguous citations that works. My problem - and I gather the problem for most people in using Zotero and Scrivener together, is that the RTF scan trips up on same author-same year citations. In the absence of a unique identifier, and given that the year field will only accept numeric data, I have adjusted the date field for the 20 or so ambiguous entries in my database. For example: Ford 1971 is the first one he wrote that year, Ford 6971 is the second work for 1971, Ford 7971 is the 3rd work and so on. RFT scan gets these just fine, so after that it is "just" a find-replace job to get them back to normal.
    Incidentally, choosing RTF scan as the default output style in Zotero Preferences-Quick Copy means pasting the curly brackets short citation in the Scrivener footnote (or in-line) is as simple as Cmd-Shift-A and Cmd-V (Mac) and ensures against typos.
    Thanks to those who are able for the hard work imptoving this great software!
  • epederick
    Hi all,
    Feeling brave, decided to try the MLZ/ODF scheme of fbennett. Ended totally confused, but decided to document the steps i have taken to see if it might be helpful to anyone else - or indeed if anybody can assist:

    Step One

    De-installed the Zotero Firefox add-ons, and installed the MLZ, with Open Office plugin. Downloaded fbennett's zipped-up zodfscan package. Under the Documents folder, created a sub-folder called Zodfscan, where I copied the setup.py file and the zodfscan.py file.

    Step Two

    In Scrivener, in a “play project” entitled My Scrivener Hints, I entered a citation from MLZ. In MLZ, under Preferences-Export I had selected:
    Default Ouput Style = Turabian (full note with bibliography)
    Include Zotero link wrappers – checked
    Use citation form as default – checked

    This gave the following citation in a footnote in Scrivener: { | Ian G. Barbour, “Teilhard’s process metaphysics,” Journal of Religion 49, no. 2 (1969): 136–159 | | | zotero://select/items/0_TTQ52TGZ}

    I compiled the Scrivener project to ODF, saving it as My Scrivener Hints.odf in the folder Documents/Zodfscan

    Step Three

    Following the instructions of fbennett downloaded from the MLZ website with the zodfscan files, (and reading between the lines) … I opened Terminal from Finder on my Mac. I changed into the zodfscan directory by entering cd Documents/Zodfscan. There, I tried various things:

    a) Running the script: python ./zodfscan.py My Scrivener Hints.odt My Scrivener Hints B.odt

    No luck – received following output:

    Last login: Tue Apr 16 13:19:45 on ttys000
    Evans-MacBook-Air:~ evanpederick$ cd Documents/Zodfscan
    Evans-MacBook-Air:Zodfscan evanpederick$ python .zodfscan.py My Scrivener Hints.odt My ScrivenerHints B.odt
    python: can't open file '.zodfscan.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
    Evans-MacBook-Air:Zodfscan evanpederick$

    b) Figuring the zodfscan.py script needed to be installed first, I re-opened Terminal and changed to the Documents/Zodfscan directory, then entered: sudo python ./setup.py install

    No luck. Received th following output:

    Last login: Tue Apr 16 13:33:53 on ttys000
    Evans-MacBook-Air:~ evanpederick$ cd Documents/Zodfscan
    Evans-MacBook-Air:Zodfscan evanpederick$ sudo python ./setup.py install
    Password:
    running install
    running bdist_egg
    running egg_info
    writing zodfscan.egg-info/PKG-INFO
    writing top-level names to zodfscan.egg-info/top_level.txt
    writing dependency_links to zodfscan.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
    reading manifest file 'zodfscan.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
    writing manifest file 'zodfscan.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
    installing library code to build/bdist.macosx-10.8-intel/egg
    running install_lib
    warning: install_lib: 'build/lib' does not exist -- no Python modules to install

    installing scripts to build/bdist.macosx-10.8-intel/egg/EGG-INFO/scripts
    running install_scripts
    running build_scripts
    error: file '/Users/evanpederick/Documents/Zodfscan/bin/zodfscan.py' does not exist
    Evans-MacBook-Air:Zodfscan evanpederick$

    Step Four

    Totally mystified. What is this python? Do I need to download a piece of software here? Googled Python Installer and downloaded it – the icon looks like a little rocket ship. When I opened it, no hint as to what to do with it. Defaults:

    Interpreter: /usr/bin/pythonw
    Options: all unchecked
    Command line: cd “ &&'/usr/bin/pythonw/ '' && echo Exit status: $7 &&

    Thought the looked suggestive but soon found I am unable in fact to enter anything into this line.

    Sorry, but this is all too hard! Are there instructions that can be followed by mere users? Thought I would reproduce as exactly as possible how I tried to do this so that somebody might be able to tell me what in fact I should have done. At the moment I have:

    a) MLZ installed instead of regular Zotero – seems to do everything regular Zotero does. Is this a problem? Treid to go back to regular Xzotero but am unable to because it tells me my database has been opened with a higher version of Zotero.

    b) Impressive-looking output in .odt format that mocks me by suggesting that it could be what I want, if it felt like it, but isn't ...
  • adamsmith
    so step one and two are right. I'd actually ask people to _not_ install MLZ just for this at this point. I'm a day or two away from porting the drag&drop feature to regular Zotero - it'll be more elegant in some ways and less elegant in others, but will work.*

    Python is a programming language - it is pre-installed in Mac OSX, so you shouldn't have to worry about any of the stuff in step 4. I don't know why 3b) isn't working - but it's likely not been tested on Mac (Frank uses linux) but 3a) should work.

    I believe there are two problems:
    1. The one you actually received the error for is a simple typo:
    Evans-MacBook-Air:Zodfscan evanpederick$ python .zodfscan.py My Scrivener Hints.odt My ScrivenerHints B.odt
    is missing a / - it should start python ./zodfscan.py and that's the error you're getting.
    2. The second problem are the filenames. I'd use filenames without spaces for testing because spaces break the commandline. (It is possible to use spaces, escaping them via backslask, ie My\ Scrivener\ Hints.odt but for simplicity I'd leave that out.

    So rename the file "scrivenerhints-in.odt", make sure it is in the Zodfscan directory and then run
    python ./zodfscan.py scrivenerhints-in.odt scrivenerhints-out.odt


    * If you have a back-up of your Zotero database before installing MLZ I'd actually encourage you to move back to "vanilla" Zotero.
  • dstillman
    (With kudos to Evan's truly admirable pioneer spirit here, this, obviously, is what I meant on the dev list when I said that this was a no-go for mainline Zotero as long as there was a Python script involved. Users shouldn't be asked to open Terminal, shouldn't be asked to know what Python is, and certainly shouldn't be expected to run arbitrary commands (with sudo, no less!) from the command line.)
  • fbennett
    (And that's why I agreed with you, Dan.)
  • dstillman
    (No, I know. But I wasn't sure whether adamsmith wanted to include the new translator for everyone or just distribute it separately. The latter, obviously, is fine. I just don't really want it to show up for everyone until we have built in processing.)
  • fbennett
    @epederick,

    I've read through your post, and I'm listening. From where you have arrived, you can run conversion, using the command suggested by @adamsmith -- with zodfscan.py file and input file in the same folder, and using ./zodfscan.py (with both dot and slash) to run the script.

    If you would like a break from the whole thing, post back here and I'll walk you through the steps to get back to Zotero. It's straightforward to do.
  • epederick
    Hey thanks everyone - Adam for checking my attempt and pointing out the typo - Frank for the offer of further assistance. I have taken Adam's advice and rolled back to vanilla Zotero (aren't backups wonderful?). There is obvious interest in this extension so I'm happy to wait for official Zotero to catch up ... meantime might get back to actual writing!
  • fbennett
    Good thought! I'll be there soon as well.
  • adamsmith
    I'm happy to say that Frank and I have now published a fairly polished version of ODF Scan that is fully GUI-driven, so no commandline etc. This should be a very good solution for Scrivener, in all likelihood the best thing to the next couple of years.
    http://zotero-odf-scan.github.io/zotero-odf-scan/
  • jhuebert
    Just a quick endorsement of this new tool - it is great! I am convinced the Scrivener - Zotero combo is a 'killer app' for writing the thesis / dissertation.

    I have been using Scrivener and Zotero for about a year. I was optimistic that a solution like this would come together in time to put final chapter drafts together, and am very happy to see it has. Thanks, guys!
  • duncdrum
    just to be sure is this different from what MLZ 4m383 has build in?
  • adamsmith
    I don't believe the scan is implemented by default in MLZ, you'd also have to install the tool (which is available from the MLZ tools page as well: http://citationstylist.org/tools/?#mlz-tools ).
    MLZ, as opposed to vanilla Zotero, can produce scannable cites without the plugin, though.
  • sara.koopman
    I've wanted to start using scrivener for a couple of years now, but this whole conversation has kept me from it - the process for using the plug in sounds so awkward. precisely what I love about zotero is being able to so quickly type in an author and have it suggest citations from which I can quickly pick. please please, is someone working on making this integration easier?
  • adamsmith
    not really, no.

    But have you tried this out? The main difference in usage is that you don't have a pop-up over the Word document, but switch to Zotero to select the citation. On a well set-up computer that can be a keyboard shortcut in both direction.
  • mihvan
    I use Scrivener with Zotero like this...

    1: Install the RTF Scan citation style https://www.zotero.org/styles/?q=RTF%20Scan
    2: Apply it as default
    3: Copy-paste a reference from Zotero (ctrl+shift+c) to your document
    4: When done writing export document as RFT and run it through RTF scan within Zotero (tools menu).
    5: Done

    Disavantage is that you loose the automated relation between in-text citations and bibliography.
  • NeoSartre
    Although fairly new to Zotero, it is already saving me agonizing work. I too would like to see an integration between Scrivener and Zotero that is more like the Google and Word integrations. The choice process is great and you can avoid popping back and forth as well as the final processing elements.
  • adamsmith
    which google integration are you talking about? Everything that's possible with google docs is possible with Scrivener.
  • NeoSartre
    @adamsmith

    You are correct! I guess I meant to write Libreoffice and Word. Where you don't have to do the RTF/ODT Scan as part of workflow. Thanks for the correction!
  • davidrjordan
    I hope that soon the integration of Zotero with Scrivener could be so good as with LibreOffice or MS-Word.
  • emilianoeheyns
    Scrivener is closed-source, and has no extension API. It is because LibreOffice and MS-Word have extension APIs that such integration is possible. You'd have to petition the Scrivener authors to allow for integration.
  • mijalce
    Hello all,

    I already put the information on Zotero forums, but just to make a note here that new integration between Scrivener and Zotero has been developed.

    The information is posted at https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/51168/scrivener-and-zotero-integration/

    You can find detail instruction how to use it at https://zotplus.github.io/better-bibtex/cayw.html

    See the discussions at https://github.com/ZotPlus/zotero-better-bibtex/issues/263

    I hope you find it useful.

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