useful features

lucianf
Hi, I have been using zotero and I love it. However, I have been waiting for several new features which in my opinion I think they would be more useful than the new button change:

1. An email pdf/email reference feature: let's say someone asks you to send them an article you have in your library and also let's assume they do not use zotero. At the moment, in order to do this, I have to go to the reference, right click and go to show show file, then I have to insert that file as an attachment into the email. How about an email button, that attaches the pdf and some of the info for the reference?

2. Better chrome functionality. A zotero chrome extension or app (whatever it is called now).

3. A way to retrieve missing information for a reference or a group of references. It happens that you introduce a reference by hand and you miss something like the issue whatever. This features has been missing for too long from zotero!

4. A tidier info pane for references. If there is no info for that category then the category should not appear! For example, if there is no Series Text for a reference, this should not appear!

5. Better note taking! This could pair well with an internal pdf viewer so you can read the article and add a few notes that can be searchable.

6. When you snapshot a webpage and then check that reference again, I think an option to go to the original web page and not just the stored info on the computer, should be available.

Anyway, I am sure these things will be solved at some point. Until then this is a really good reference manager!

Lucian
  • zuphilip
    1. Just use the quick copy and general drag & drop, i.e. drag the article from zoter and drop it into a new email. This will result in an export of the metadata in some format, which you can choose in the settings. Moreover, you can also drag and drop the attached pdf from zotero to your email. (Tested on Win8, Zotero for Firefox, Thunderbird)
  • lucianf
    OK this is an option (thank you btw! I will use it from now on!) but in my mind this could be expanded to more than email.

    For example: keep the database in the dropbox/google drive folder, then when someone asks for an article (or more than one!), just select references and have options: send via email, share files via dropbox/google drive link etc. I think this functionality would be useful!

    Thanks again for the tip!
  • adamsmith
    (ad 1: the database can't be in a sync folder like Drive or Dropbox. that's a recipe for database corruption. Biggest issue for tighter e-mail integration is making this work across systems, which all handle these types of things very differently. That's why single-platform software like Papers has an easier time doing this).

    2) There's not going to be a full Chrome app (there can't be, for technical reasons). Minor improvements on the Chrome connector are planned though. In particular, import from Chrome will look exactly as it does now from Firefox, i.e. available on every site and able to choose a translator.

    3 & 4 are planned, but 4 is a bit more tricky than you make it out to be -- not displaying empty field can also be annoying and even misleading as it makes it harder to spot missing information that you want to have included. No ETA, on either of these though. Likely not super-soon.

    5. I think note-taking in Zotero is actually very good and with taggable, relatable, rich-text notes it offers more functionality than any comparable program. If you're interested in better PDF-notetaking integration, have a look at the ZotFile add-on, which is able to extract annotations from PDFs into Zotero notes. www.zotfile.com

    6. You can do that in two ways: a) click on the "URL" field label in the info field in Zotero when the parent item is selected. and b) click on the actual link displayed at the top right when the Snapshot is selected.
  • lucianf
    Wow! awesome answer! I can say that I am excited to see the future improvements.

    However I am confused about the database corruption issue in Dropbox. I have my database there for more than 2 years I think, and nothing happened. This is the only way I can work with zotero on my work computer and at home using the same database. Also, since I have my 1 Tb at dropbox I have all my work folders there.
    I have to mention that with this setup there is no way that there is simultaneous writing to the database from work and from home (unless some serious technological improvements, this situation will never occur in my case :D ).

    I have never used Papers! Isn't this a Mac only software? I only have a linux and a windows machine.

    Regarding the email integration I thought, you could start small with say, gmail integration for example. And since the app runs in the browser I thought there could be a way to connect gmail with zotero somehow.

    Regarding the Chrome app I thought that since there are now apps that run as a separate process in Chrome (like all the new editors, drawing apps etc.), an app for Zotero could too. But I don't know how to program something like this so I believe you when you say there are serious technical difficulties.

    5. Note taking I think would be easier if one could have the pdf open on one side and a note taking window somewhere on the screen. But I will check out the method with zotfile. I am already using it to rename the imported pdfs. An idea to achieve this is to make the note taking tab also available as a popup window! This way you can read a pdf and take notes, without worrying about including an internal pdf viewer!

    Anyway, thank you for all the info on the upcoming changes and sorry for insisting on the rest of the stuff!

    Lucian
  • noksagt
    I have my database there for more than 2 years I think, and nothing happened
    Just because you haven't yet gotten burned doesn't mean we can recommend playing with fire. Dropbox may not properly sync the sqlite file when it is open in firefox. Sometimes, syncing may take longer than anticipated or dropbox goes down & there seems to be no real hurdle preventing you from accidentally updating your home database when the changes to your work database have not yet been pushed to dropbox.

    What is the reason you can't use the Zotero sync server to keep the database in sync? It is usually possible to set this up and only the attachment (file) syncing via dropbox.
  • adamsmith
    edited January 19, 2016
    I have never used Papers! Isn't this a Mac only software? I only have a linux and a windows machine.
    yes, that was my point: it's much easier for software that only runs on one OS to interact with other aspects of the OS (Papers has a Windows version, too, but they completely re-wrote it and it isn't anywhere as good as the Mac version, so that doesn't really count). I think gmail integration is the way to go for Zotero if it wants to support easier e-mailing. Would work great as an add-on, too. I don't think there's room on the short-to-mid-term agenda of the core developers for this.

    And what noksagt says re: dropbox
  • DWL-SDCA
    Please note that even Dropbox itself recommends against using it to sync database files across mulitple computers.
  • adamsmith
    @DWL -- do you happen to have a link for that or was that in a conversation with support or so? If they say this somewhere in their docs/FAQ that would be helpful to drive that point home for us.
  • lucianf
    @noksagt I was under the impression that the sync function will sync everything on the zotero storage, database AND pdfs. And I have too many pdfs. Also I have set zotero to copy the attached pdfs where the database is (in the dropbox folder) to keep everything tidy. Are you telling me that I can sync with the zotero server only the database files? I don't really understand how this works.
  • noksagt
    That's right. The documentation on data syncing is clear on this:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/sync#data_syncing
  • DWL-SDCA
    I'm looking for the warning and will post as soon as I find it. I've used Dropbox since its earliest days for regular file sharing and I have no complaints. I know that the company presented a short list of types of files it should not be used for. It is that list I'm seeking. Among the other things on the list were cautions against unsaved changes on one machine and opening and editing the file on another. They provided guidance on using save/save-as and the issue of automatic version control.
  • lucianf
    precisely! dropbox has an interesting way of resolving such conflicts by renaming the conflicting file. I have checked just now my zotero base directory and it seems there were some conflicting sqlite files last year but i never noticed problems. they were there thou if I needed to revert the database in case of a problem. Anyway, this feature combined with the version control in dropbox (which keeps all version of a file for a month), there shouldn't be any fatal problems with the database.
  • noksagt
    While you would be able to restore an older version in the event of a corrupted sync or a file that has been updated multiple places (and sometimes this happens automatically), note well that this inevitably leads to some amount of data loss.

    In the case of restoring an older file: records added or modified since the older version of the file will be lost.

    In the case of a change conflict leading to a rename, the changes to either your home or work machine would be hidden in the renamed file & it would be difficult merging these.

    Perhaps you can tolerate this small amount of data loss, but many users can't, which is why dropbox syncing of the database isn't supported.
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited January 19, 2016
    Yes. Data loss across files of differing ages is indeed a problem but that isn't the most significant issue. Zotero saves changes almost instantly upon leaving a field. This works well on a local drive.

    Dropbox can permanently garble the relationship within and between the database tables because of the nature of the way it compresses files and the timing of the way it writes updates to the database.

    edit- Similar issues can occur when the database is housed on a network drive.
  • lucianf
    OK, after reading about the dangers of dropbox syncing, I have switched to syncing the database with the zotero server.

    All i can say is that it is disappointingly slow! A modification on one device takes ages to translate on the other. I have a really fast internet connection so this cannot be the cause.

    Considering all the risks I will keep using dropbox until syncing will be faster!

    This should also be added to the list btw!
  • adamsmith
    after the initial sync (which does take a while) that really shouldn't be the case anymore.
  • DWL-SDCA
    What adamsmith says above. Also, if after your initial sync things continue to be slow, there is likely something else that is contributing to your problem. Without more information it is difficult to know what that might be. After the initial sync, even with heavy use, the sync should be hardly noticeable. Are you set to automatically sync or do you occasionally do a manual sync? The only time I find Zotero to be slow is when I work on a very lengthy, book sized, document with many references --a different issue entirely.
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