How to move to collection?

kh_price
Hi all :)

I'm fairly new to Zotero, and just finished yesterday adding in all of my pdfs and getting them all linked to the appropriate citation. Now I'd like to sort them by collections. I've created collections easily, but I can't seem to move any items between or to collections. Right now all of my items are under "Unfiled." Holding the mouse to drag an item into a collection doesn't show any dragging item, and it doesn't drop anything into the desired collection. I can duplicate items, but then I just get two copies of the item in the "Unfiled" Collection - there's no option to duplicate to a different collection. I can copy a citation from the Edit tab, but there's no paste available afterwards. Am I missing something simple here, or is it a glitch?

Thanks!

Kaitlin Snider
  • dstillman
    It really should be as simple as dragging items around. What about dragging from My Library?

    If that doesn't work either, restart Zotero (or Firefox, if you're using Zotero for Firefox) and try again. If that doesn't work, provide a Debug ID for a drag attempt that fails.
  • kh_price
    I double checked - restarted Zotero, tried both from My Library and Unfiled - and nothing drags. I'll submit that debug ID, thanks :)
  • kh_price
    Sent - Debug ID is D382558764.
  • dstillman
    edited July 31, 2014
    If you change the Quick Copy format in the Export pane of the preferences, does that make a difference?

    It'd be very strange for this not to work, particularly in a new library, so let's take a step back. If you create a new collection in your personal library, and then you go to My Library — that is, the library root — and create a new empty book item, and then you drag try to drag that to the new collection and let go, you're saying the item doesn't then appear in the collection?
  • kh_price
    Quick Copy format change doesn't work - I put it to "Cell" instead of the default and it made no difference.

    I tested it with a new collection called "Test" and a new empty book called "Test Item." Same result - no apparent dragging and definitely no copying. I Debug ID logged it in case you want to see: D990188691.
  • dstillman
    That's quite bizarre. Have you installed any other extensions into Zotero? (We've seen this same problem with Torbutton, though I don't think you'd be able to install that in Standalone.)

    Are you running any security software? If so, you can try temporarily disabling it.

    You could also try installing Zotero for Firefox, having it share your existing data directory (which it will by default), and seeing if it happens in that too. (You'll have to close Standalone before trying.)
  • kh_price
    I tried disabling my security software - no difference.

    I then installed Zotero for Firefox. If logged in to the website, I can view the "My Library" with the select-able items and then use the file folder icon with the green plus sign to "Add to Collection." That works fine.

    However, if I use the "Z" icon to pull up the library in the bottom half of the browser, there is no drag and drop. :p

    I may just organize my files in the Firefox website for now - it shouldn't be something I have to do all of the time. :)
  • dstillman
    And if you change Quick Copy to an export format instead of a bibliography format? Or, for that matter, if you set the maximum number of Quick Copy items to 1 and then try to drag two items?

    I don't think we've ever seen this in Standalone — and in Firefox it has been due to other extensions — so there's almost certainly something installed on your computer that's interfering here. (Or you might be doing something wrong, but I can't imagine what. If you have an easy way of taking a video of the drag and could post that somewhere (e.g., Dropbox) and provide a link, we could look at that.)

    How about if you drag an item onto a tag in the tag selector in the bottom left? Does the tag get added to the item?
  • kh_price
    I tried all of those with no change: Quick Copy format BibTex, Quick Copy max 1, and dragging to a tag. I didn't think it was, but it is *possible* it's my laptop. I recently spilled tea on it and a few of the keys are still funny - the left-hand cntrl button doesn't work, left-handed shift only works with certain letters, and sometimes if I'm in a browser using the shift key or space key will delete all of my text. I can drag and drop things in other programs, but maybe there is something specific about the Zotero program that my keyboard is screwing up? If no one else has ever had this issue, at this point I'm inclined to think it's my laptop. :p

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