Preview citation

steven_noble · October 26, 2012

I'd like to see what the citation will look like before I use the Copy Citation function

mronkko · October 26, 2012

When would this be useful?

alexanderroppelt · April 25, 2014

I want to revive this discussion, because I'm desperately missing the feature of an instant preview of a reference in my current style - like in Endnote.

To answer mronkko: This is very handy to check, whether your your field entries are correct and work as you wish them to, in particular for more exotic types of references.

See also:
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/22593/is-there-a-way-of-previewing-a-reference-in-standalone/
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/805/preview-reference-function-in-ui/

I am aware of
chrome://zotero/content/tools/cslpreview.xul
but it is a rather poor substitute.

adamsmith · April 25, 2014

I don't think the functionality would be that hard to add - the bigger issue would be where to put it. If we were to add a "summary" tab on the right, we could add a citation preview there. Problem with that is that it would start crowding things in the summary view, when the idea of that would be a quick overview.

Mendeley allows switching the middle pane to citation view, I don't find that convincing (and, I believe, it wouldn't be possible since we can't use rich text formatting in tree rows).

FWIW, I think chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul is a lot more useful for previewing than cslpreview.xul since you only look at one citation style.

zuphilip · April 26, 2014

How about showing a preview as a tooltip, when hovering over titles in the middle pane (maybe with a button to toggle it on and off)? Showing the text, also multiline, should be possible with normal tooltip. If we want to show it with rich formatted text, there may also be solutions which work like a tooltip (right?). Maybe similiar: https://www.zotero.org/styles/

fbennett · April 26, 2014

Or you could just present an intervening preview popup when the copy-to-clipboard hotkeys are used, with an option in the popup itself that turns it off, and with a corresponding option to turn it back on in Preferences (perhaps in the Cite tab panel, where there is not currently a crowding problem).

dstillman · April 26, 2014

I think it'd be awkward to affect the clipboard just to get a preview even if you weren't trying to use Quick Copy at all.

I think this could pretty easily be implemented as an optional pane that came up from the bottom of the middle pane, but I'm not sure there's really a compelling/universal enough use case to add this to the core code. I'd say that, at least at first, this should just be implemented as a plugin for those interested.

bwiernik · April 26, 2014

I think most of the functionality that steve_noble is looking for could be accommodated by a well-structured "Summary" tab in the right pane (as was discussed here: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/28929/right-column-looks-awful/)

alexanderroppelt · May 7, 2014

I don't know, what steve_noble was exactly looking for, but for me "a well-structured 'Summary' tab in the right pane" could not replace an instant citation preview. Nevertheless, I really like the idea of redesigned right pane as in the thread linked by bwiernik.

My preferred place for the citation preview would be the bottom of the middle pane -- just as Dan Stillman suggested.

On the universality of the need: I only know the opinions among my colleagues, but there the wish for a citation preview is widespread. On the other hand, I very much doubt, many of them would install a plugin for it (or know anything about plugins at all, respectively).

adamsmith · May 7, 2014

I assume bwiernik's idea for a summary tab is that it'd include the full citation preview - that's certainly what I have envisioned. Why wouldn't that work? I don't

As for plugin vs. full feature - plugins are great for testing ideas out and it's OK that not everyone would be aware of it. That said, people lose out on a lot of cool stuff by not using Zotero plugins - I think everyone should run Zotfile, any Mac use QuickLook, and many people would benefit from Zutilo, e.g.

alexanderroppelt · May 8, 2014

If the full citation preview is in included in the summary tab, it would fulfill its function, of course. I'm not convinced, it's the best place for it, however. The right pane is typically rather narrow, so there would be a lot of line breaks within the citation, which I don't like.

Besides, where would you place it (i. e. within one of these http://i.imgur.com/ltPSJlP.png)? The only place that seems fairly suitable to me would be an extra pane at the bottom just like the suggested place in the middle pane (which I still prefer).

I am aware of the merits of plugins and use them a lot. Others don't want to optimize their software. They want it to work smoothly out of the box. And I cannot blame them. Generally, a plugin that "everybody should run" would be surely placed better within the main program...