Collapse collections hierarchy for "My Library" online?

Quick question/feature request:

I have a complex hierarchy for my collections that gets relatively deep, so the "My Library" page scrolls a long, long way. Also, the page seems to take a long time to load, even when loading an empty collection--is that from processing the collections hierarchy?

Anyway, it would save space on the page (and maybe processing power/time) if there were an option to initially display only the top level collections, allowing users to then dig down deeper (either by loading new pages or via AJAX magic of some sort, as long as the whole hierarchy wasn't loaded/processes up front.)

Just a thought. And yes, this means I did finally get my library synced!

Also, my notes don't seem viewable by me. I have them set to not be viewable by others, but I figured I could still see them. Or maybe I'm missing something.
  • edited March 16, 2009
    Yes, for libraries that have many collections, fetching all of them and building the hierarchy is most likely the bottleneck. We will be working on improving the interface (likely with progressive ajax requests to populate the list from the top down as you suggest).

    No matter what your privacy settings, as long as you are logged in under the same account you should be able to see your library, including notes.

    Let me know if your problems persist and I can look into what might be causing it.

    edit: and even if logged in, you might try logging out and back in again.
  • Ok, I am definitely missing at least some of my notes on items. (I can't check them all with a library like mine.) Tried logging out and back in again just to be sure.

    Additional thought on collections: I love the tweak in Zotero to display the contents of a collection and its sub-collections. Any change of getting that as an option for the web version?

    Thanks!
  • As far as changes to the interface go, anything is possible at this point. Feel free to keep throwing out suggestions of what you'd like to see. We're always happy to get opinions from different perspectives.

    I'll look into the notes issue for anything obviously wrong, but any specific details you can give would be helpful if you can narrow down circumstances when your notes are not displayed. For example if they are attached to items, if only the first n notes are shown, etc.
  • It also would be nice to see the date of publication in the items list (and to remove the "date added") and esp. to order the items chronologically, alphabetically, etc.
  • Stand-alone notes seem fine, but I have yet to find any of my notes that are attached to items.
  • Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Should be working correctly now.

    Please let us know if you notice any other issues like this, as these features are still very much under development.
  • edited March 19, 2009
    Zotero is great! Here are a few suggestions for making the web-based library even better:
    -the ability so choose which folders, or collections, you want to make public
    -the ability to search online collections (particularly helpful when looking at another person's public library).
    -the ability to edit library information through the website
    -maybe the ability to make items public that have selected tags
    -the ability to hyperlink text to library items within notes -- so, if your note mentions a book or article, readers can click on the link within the text to see the citation.
    -a public wiki that lets zotero members create a massive annotated bibliography / literature review, wikipedia style
  • I'm all for being able to search the online library. That would be hugely convenient, all the other suggestions don't matter as much to me.
  • I would love the ability to edit notes and search my library online. That would be particularly helpful when I'm using computers without Firefox (or Zotero).
  • +1 for being able to search the online library
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