Easier way to move items between collections

brahmss
Hi,
Thanks for developing Zotero! It's an amazing tool!!!

I have an idea to make it better.
Since I have more than 100 collections, and always arrange items between them, it is hard to move an item from one collection to another one by drag-and-drop.
(Because I need to search the name of the destination collection with my eyes. If I type the initial letters of the destination collection, I will lose the focus of the current item).

Is there any better way to do this?

An easier way can be: copy/cut the item, then go to the destination collection and paste it there.

Thank you very much!
  • dstillman
    I don't know if we'll add cut/copy/paste support for items — I always find that a bit weird, though I get the appeal — but we'll definitely be adding a way to copy/move items using the context menu, and you'll be able to navigate the submenu by typing.
  • brahmss
    That's great!
    Any method -- just make it easier to arrange items between LOTS OF collections -- will be very helpful.
    Thank you!
  • schibones
    Many times I also greatly miss an alternative to drag-and-drop to copy or move items between collections, so I am very glad to hear that something like that is in development. Thank you very much! To me, a keyboard command sounds most appealing.
    Whichever method is chosen, important to me would be that you don't have to return to the "origin" collection of the item you want to move if you, while searching, accidentally clicked on the "destination" collection (causing it to display all its items and not showing the highlighted item that you want to move anymore).
  • FREDERIC85
    I don't know how you will implement the collection system, it is pretty good right now but might be better if good ideas are thrown in the bucket.
    A thing I would like to see is an auto addition to all the parent collections of node.
    I'm dealing with a lot of collections and sub-collections and I think it would be great that when you add a document in a sub one it should be automatically added to the parent one. Like it's done when you add a document to a collection it's added to the library.

    So if you add a document to the end of a cascade of collection you will find it in all the above one it is coming from.
  • adamsmith
    Frederic -- that's already available as a hidden preference "recursive collections"
    https://www.zotero.org/support/preferences/hidden_preferences#general_preferences
  • FREDERIC85
    Indeed, many thanks Adam.

    Good to know these hidden features and the fact we can tune them with cautious.
  • schibones
    To make sure I am not missing anything: Has an alternative method (rather than drag&drop) to copy/move items between collections been implemented already? I find it very cumbersome to drag/drop if you have many collections.
    Thanks
  • adamsmith
    Nope, nothing new
  • LynnLibrary
    So in Aug 2015 they will "definitely be adding" and In Feb 2017 "nothing new" and in Jan 2018 still seems clunky?
  • dstillman
    @LynnLibrary: Not sure what you mean by "clunky". Copying and moving items via drag-and-drop should work fine. If it's not for you, start a new thread and explain what's not working.

    Copying/moving items via a context menu hasn't yet been implemented. There are countless requested and planned features, so there's nothing noteworthy about a feature being planned for multiple years. (This one has actually been on the to-do list for at least six years.) You're always welcome to explain why a given feature is important to you personally.
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