how does zotero search dates
User asked me how zotero searches dates and I have no idea after having tried it out. Being a database person, I tend to assume that something labeled "date" is going to be a number, typically number of days, from some reference date. For example oracle uses the reference date 01-01-4712 years BCE.
In such a system sorting and searching dates is very easy but getting dates into such a system and dealing with missing or imprecise input is a major problem.
What is zotero doing with dates? Are they just text?
We have some references loaded and the behavior about searching is not going well. Dates are in different formats and different time granularities. Searches are not doing what is expected. Any tips?
In such a system sorting and searching dates is very easy but getting dates into such a system and dealing with missing or imprecise input is a major problem.
What is zotero doing with dates? Are they just text?
We have some references loaded and the behavior about searching is not going well. Dates are in different formats and different time granularities. Searches are not doing what is expected. Any tips?
It would help if you could specify "not doing what is expected".
Dates, when entered, are parsed (to the best of Zotero's abilities) and stored in YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss format (to as much granularity as possible) along with the unparsed strings.
But yeah, not clear what uwmstubbs is looking for here.
Probably the confusion with date searching is what goes in the search box.
The operator choices are "is, is not, is before, is after, is in the last" and then there's the box. So are the dates that go in the box expected to be in that date format then? YYYY-MM-DD ?
(Just want to know how this is supposed to work.)
(BTW a between operator would be nice.)
2012-11-19
will work, as with
Nov 19, 2012
or
11/19/2012
you can create a between operator by adding a second search condition. That's easy enough to not make it worth it to deal with the GUI complexity of a dedicated operator.
if I search for
date
is before
2005
I get 10 entries.
When the user does it they get nothing. No window pops up even.
by default advanced searches apply to "My Library" and "My Library" only - groups are not included.
Also, I'm not sure about what window pop-up you're talking. Search results for advanced searches are just displayed at the bottom of the search window.
Yes it is a group library. So that explains it then that I had a
bunch of items in my library so it looked like it works.
I think it would be great to somehow convey to the user that fact.
Then the question would be how to get the group library to sync to
"my library" so that the search works.
The users are making it clear that a search is a major priority regarding this idea of a group bibliography.
Quick searches always apply to the selected collection, including if that's a group library.
new sub directory called "untitled", "untitled 2" etc?
Somehow I'm getting that effect.
right click on the group library name (not a sub collection) and do a saved search, right?
I'm finding that the group concept doesn't work the way I was thinking (which was basically there was a group bibliography and no individual ones and all operations would proceed on the group). What was the concept of the group? How was it intended to be used in conjunction with a lot of individual bibliographies?
@Dan - is there any reason this is disabled for users without editing rights? it's the only way to do an advanced search. You can use the quick search bar and as I say above it will search the currently selected collection, including if that's an entire group library.
This is not set in stone, though - it's basically a UI problem that needs solving, afaik there is no technical reason for this. While this was designed to be pretty flexible, yes, that's generally the idea.
But unsaved advanced search in groups should obviously be possible and is certainly planned. It just hasn't been implemented.