Upgrade StorageKeyboard Shortcuts conflict w/ Firefox defaults (Mac OS X)
There used to be an option to "Try to override conflicting shortcuts." I know that this was taken away awhile ago because it was stated that "most Zotero shortcuts are active only in the Zotero pane, so overriding other Firefox shortcuts isn't necessary." However, I'm getting constant conflicts. Is this a bug, or something wrong with my system, or does everyone else that uses Zotero's shortcuts actually change them from the default settings so that they don't conflict? A good example is Cmd-Shift-A which, in Zotero, will "Copy selected item citations to clipboard" and also takes me to the Add-ons page in Firefox (the default behavior in Firefox for this shortcut).
The issue there would be Zotero not swallowing the Cmd-Shift-A (assuming it can). Issue created.
It appears that (at least) any keyboard shortcut that affects the add-on page is not "swallowed" by Zotero. E.g,. if the last closed tab was the add-on page, then Cmd-Shift-T will re-open the add-on page; however, if the last closed tab was some other page, Cmd-Shift-T will have no affect outside of the Zotero pane. However, Zotero will not "swallow" keyboard shortcuts for extensions (e.g., "Clip to DevonTHINK" uses "Cmd-Shift-C" by default).
However, the keyboard shortcuts still cause the menubar to respond (momentarily flash blue) as though I was invoking the normal Firefox shortcut. As a user with no knowledge of coding, it seems as though the original feature of "overriding" shortcuts worked with no side effects (to my knowledge), but this solution is janky.
Obviously, you're still welcome to adjust one of the two keystrokes if you'd prefer them to be different. (There are extensions that let you modify Firefox's default keyboard shortcuts, and other extensions should let you modify their own.)
At the moment, the ability to use Ctrl Shift A is crucial, since it is the all important citation, so my lecture was rather anti-climatic.
I should have thought to have them all install the MS Word add on (but trying that now on word 2007, I can not find the tool bar).
Even Zutilo does not add a citation menu item.
Will the short-cut key be working again soon? Did we do something wrong (most of them installed vanilla firefox and a recent zotero)?
Tim
We'd need more detail to know if you did something wrong, what you tried, etc.
You can also create citations using shift+drag or using right-click --> Creatr Bibliography (and then select citation/note).
Thank you for your kind response.
There were 10 students and only 1 or two got ctrl+shift+a (or cmd+shift+a on a mac) (three of them were using macs) to work.
One student tried changing the shortcutkey to a variety of other capital letters to no avail.
The only default setting that I had had them change was to turn off the Zotero search functionality by setting number of words to search to zero. Since that was the only setting I had changed, I changed it to 10 to see if that made any difference but it did not.
Thank you for the other methods of citing. I will try those out and let the students know.
I had told them that Zotero developers would fix the "issue" and to re-download, but I see now that it is an issue only for my students and my other PC. Strange.
Tim
Do you have access to a PC where this doesn't work?
Thanks to you I understand the problem.
One has to set a default output format in the Export tab in preferences in order to use the shortcutkeys at all.
I had forgotten this.
I suggest that Zotero export default to whatever is at the top of the list or MLA/Chicago/APA or something rather than nothing.
Thanks again.
Tim
1) The (right click context menu) "Create Bibliography from Item" dialogue allows me to set a citation style. Perhaps in the absence of preference having been set on the Export tab, Zotero might default to whatever has been set on this dialogue screen.
2) I had deleted all but the APA style which is the only one I use. I rashly assumed that since it was the only one, it would be defaulted to.
While I do use AdamSmith's suggested APA myself, defaulting to the top of either styles list, or most recently used would also have been super.
Tim
Timothy Takemoto
I agree that deleting all but styles was probably a rare thing to do. I thought I did it though in response to the problem (i.e. after I had had the issue) not before. I don't think my students copied me.
> Quick Copy doesn't have anything to do with the "Create Bibliography from Item" function to begin with, so why should it in this case?
I think perhaps that style setting in one function and style setting in another may be felt to have a lot to do with each other in the minds of the user.
It is perplexes me somewhat that the Quick Copy Default Output Format menu still contains styles that are not installed in my Zotero.
By the way, I had a look in the "Cite" tab but I did not look in the "Export" tab because I thought that it referred to the export of the database, like "Export items" in the context menu.
But if no one is having this problem, then it is probably just me.
Tim