Make right pane collapsable like left pane

Matt Jans
It would be great to be able to collapse the right pane (where we see document details, tags, notes, etc) like we can collapse the left pane. I regularly find myself working with my collections, sub-collections, and libraries, and I want to see more columns in the center pane than are easily viewable with all three panes open. If I don't need the left pane I collapse that, but I need it when doing file organizing (and don't need the right pane open for those tasks).

Any plans to do this in future versions?
  • aurimas
    Out of curiosity, would horizontal scrolling be helpful in the center pane (i.e. you cab add more columns, but they may be hidden off screen)?
  • bwiernik
    Ideally there would be both. It would be nice to be able to have more columns/move Zotero to a smaller screen without the column widths adjusting and instead invoking the scroll bar
  • Matt Jans
    aurimas, that might work, but zoom in/out would be even better. I should modify my request. Either hiding the pane or sliding the pane divider to make the center wider would work. My worry about vertical scroll is that it requires mousing. I try to stay off the mouse because I have a repetitive stress injury, and it's less efficient overall.
  • aurimas
    For accessibility reasons, I think we would want to make horizontal scroll work with the keyboard as well. The reason I asked is because I have proposed this change over a year ago, but it hasn't received much attention, so I'm looking around to see if there is much demand for it.
  • Matt Jans
    I'm really glad you're thinking of accessibility! School that's accessible with KB shortcut might be okay (e.g., ctrl+arrow or something like that. I haven't really worked through the tab order of Zotero yet, and there are some things I have to p&c for, like "rename from metadata" and "get metadata". It would be nice to have more customization of kb shortcuts in general. I don't know how much user testing you do, but that might help (e.g., allow kb shortcuts for the most common user tasks). I can recommend usability people in your area (used to work in the field in DC).

    Keep up the great work.
  • dstillman
    Ticket created to make the right pane collapsible. It should be trivial to do — we never did it because it seemed less useful than collapsing the left-hand pane, but a number of people have asked for it over the years, and there's no real downside.
  • Oxa
    Thanks!! Like Matt Jans, I would find this tweak extremely useful in organizing, managing, and searching entries in collections.
  • Matt Jans
    Just wanted to inquire to see if this is planned for future release.
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