Automatic proxy support

wouterstomp
"Automatic proxy support: This release automatically detects most major university proxy systems and seamlessly proxies URLs."

Can anybody tell me a little more about this? How can I use this? Or how do I know if it is working?
  • CB
    I'd like more info on this too.

    But I know mine's working. What it seems to do is observe if you use an institutional proxy to access a particular database url. When it catches one (for instance if you go to something like http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.ezproxy.*.edu.*) it asks if you want to store the info about it. If you agree, from then on it will rewrite matching urls (eg. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/*) to go via the proxy. It's really very nice for looking up things outside of your institutional proxy (eg. on google scholar), and then jumping straight in to be able to get full-text access etc.

    That's what it seems to do for me.

    I'd be interested to see if there's anywhere I can see or manipulate the list of proxies/urls used. What happens, for example, if I change institutions?
  • wouterstomp
    Ah ok. When I use my university's proxy I get a dialog box with a yellow background and this error:

    XML-parsefout: ongedefinieerde entiteit
    Locatie: chrome://zotero/content/proxy.xul
    Regelnummer 19, kolom 18: <description>&zotero.proxy.recognized.warning.secondary;</description>
    ---------------------------------------------^
  • sean
    That's a localization error. We don't normally support non-English locales while in pre-release testing. You can try switching your Zotero interface to English by going to about:config in Firefox and setting general.useragent.locale to en-US.
  • Tjowens
    CB, you can edit the list of proxies from the new proxies tab in the preferences pane.
  • CB
    Tjowens: Ah yes, thanks, silly me. Change blindness strikes again.
  • wouterstomp
    Ok it works now, but it is a bit of a confusing dialog. Zotero is only mentioned in the fourth or fifth line of text.
  • wouterstomp
    And it is still a bit of a mystery to me how I can make use of it. I enabled it when I was asked, but if I then later go to e.g. the new england journal of medicine webpage its url doesn't get rewritten like I thought it was supposed to.
  • dstillman
    Have you visited the New England Journal of Medicine site via your proxy since installing the new version? Zotero has no way of knowing that an arbitrary site should use your proxy, but, once you load it through the proxy the first time, it will then automatically use the proxy in the future for matching URLs.
  • wouterstomp
    Ah yes that works, quite nice and very useful. That will save a lot of time!
  • wouterstomp
    A suggestion for the preferences dialog: why don't you combine those two options shown there in one "enable automatic proxy support" option? I assume both are needed for this to function properly and it is not very useful to enable one without the other.
  • sphokc
    I haven't moved over to 1.5 yet and I'm a little puzzled by this feature. Will this automatic proxy support work for off campus access to i.p. restricted titles with a sync'd collection between a home and work PC? My institution doesn't provide ezproxy support or anything similar, so this is currently a problem. We're still using ATHENS logins which makes using zotero at home somewhat more laborious than at work.

    Thanks in advance to anyone able to clear this up for me.
  • rckennedy3
    I like the idea of the automatic proxy but I haven't managed to use it successfully yet.

    Dan Stillman wrote: "... Zotero has no way of knowing that an arbitrary site should use your proxy, but, once you load it through the proxy the first time, it will then automatically use the proxy in the future for matching URLs."

    The approach Stillman outlines definitely is not working for me. From home I have logged into JSTOR many times going through my institution's library site, but Zotero has not caught on. If I try to get onto JSTOR simply by entering the URL http://www.jstor.org I do not get access. I may be misunderstanding how this thing is supposed to work. I'd be very happy for advice.

    I've not been able to understand the instructions for doing a manual configuration. I'd be grateful if someone would post a fully-commented example. Thanks.
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