Keyboard 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).
  • Do you have other examples? I think that Cmd-Shift-A behavior in Firefox is new, since the override pref defaulted to false in Zotero and Cmd-Shift-A definitely used to work without triggering that.

    The issue there would be Zotero not swallowing the Cmd-Shift-A (assuming it can). Issue created.
  • Just tried all of my Zotero shortcuts: concur with OP about Cmd-shift-A. All the others seem to work fine. Using Zotero for FF (OS 10.8.4 / FF 22, Zot 4.0.8r11413).
  • This should be fixed in the latest 4.0 Branch dev XPI.
  • Sorry for the delay.

    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).
  • Do you mean in the latest 4.0 Branch dev XPI, or before? As I said, this should already be fixed. If you can reproduce a problem with the dev XPI, let me know.
  • So I normally don't use the "branch XPI" or whatever it's supposed to be called. I had Zotero 4.0.8 installed in Firefox. I installed Zotero 4.0.8r11323 and the keystroke is successfully "swallowed" by Zotero.

    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.
  • edited July 2, 2013
    Not sure if we can do anything about that flash, but I'll take a look. The previous behavior was much worse, though—it completely unset other keystrokes, even though Zotero's own shortcuts only worked within the Zotero pane and there was no reason the originals couldn't continue to work when the Zotero pane was closed.

    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.)
  • OK, maybe I just never really used those shortcuts outside of Zotero, so I didn't notice the conflict. Thanks for the fix!
  • Issue created for the menu bar flash (which might be Mac-only).
  • Today I taught the use of Zotero to 10 postgrad students and Ctrl Shift A did not seem to work on most of the machines (it did work on some so I presume it is an issue with the latest version of firefox).

    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
  • ctrl+shift+a (or cmd+shift+a on a mac) works in general and we have not had any reports of this not working since this was fixed last summer.

    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).
  • edited January 22, 2014
    Dear AdamSmith

    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
  • edited January 22, 2014
    This may not work if they have, for whatever reason, a translator instead of a citation style selected as the default output format in the Export tab. That's currently my only idea of what might have happened.
    Do you have access to a PC where this doesn't work?
  • Thank you again!

    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
  • I suggest that Zotero export default to whatever is at the top of the list or MLA/Chicago/APA or something rather than nothing.
    I agree - Dan: I seem to recall that this used to be set to APA or so by default? Is that no longer the case? Even if it wasn't I agree with timtak that it should be.
  • edited January 22, 2014
    Other reasons why I failed to realize that a setting existed is because:

    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
  • Dan: I seem to recall that this used to be set to APA or so by default?
    It's always been set to chicago-note-bibliography by default and still is.
    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.
    But yes, deleting the style that it was set to would stop this from working. I disagree that it should automatically default to another style, though. Having only one style left is sort of a special (and I would guess rare) case, but if you consider the standard case — having Quick Copy be set to something that was then deleted — I think having Zotero start outputting something else at random without warning is a bad idea. It makes sense to me that people would have to go back to Quick Copy to choose another style. (And 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?)
  • Oh, I see. I deleted the default style!

    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
  • edited January 23, 2014
    It is perplexes me somewhat that the Quick Copy Default Output Format menu still contains styles that are not installed in my Zotero.
    I don't know what you mean by this — it's not the case generally. If you delete a style in the Cite pane, the Quick Copy menu currently doesn't get updated until you close and reopen the preferences window, but that's it.
  • 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.
    Well, but it doesn't. If users think that, they're confused.
  • It is probably just me.
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