Zotero 5.0 Beta
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Those of us who need the extra features use the beta. As far as i am concerned it has been at gold for many weeks. Reading the posts on this forum, though, I've noticed that there are fringe issues that led to minor problems with some operating system versions and browser combinations. Beta users who have less computer knowledge and confidence have reported problems -- thus UI changes have been made.
My observation is that there have been several things external to Zotero that have occurred that have had impact on Zotero and adjustments were required to keep Zotero in perfect compliance. Some of this seems to be related to getting each of the connectors to have identical capabilities. While these final tweaks are being made it appears that other things are being done such as the multi-language translations. Maybe some of the delay is preparing the online documentation for the new version.
Zotero 5 beta works well with the plug-ins I need. Are there widely used plug-ins that as yet are not Zotrro-5-ready?
In my opinion, bugs are not the only problems with software, sometimes version fragmentation can lead to a lot of problems. Especially with users with low technical skills that can manage a crash but not choosing between "standalone" or not, multiple documentation, different plugin version and so on. Right now we are in one of the worst positions: multiple packaging, multiple add-on, multiple version... So yes let's rush.
@vladislav I do not fully understand how rushing will help with training. It seems the other way around - sufficient beta period and good documentation should help with training when the full public release happens. More so with plug-in developers, who get sufficient time to code a new version of the plug-in and be ready to go when the full public release happens.
Not saying we need to be in beta longer, just respecting the decision of the developers to wait and fix some more bugs and finish documentation.
That said, it would be helpful to get a clearer sense of timing -- I completely understand that you can't give us a firm ETA before you think the beta is ready, but even something in the form of "we will announce the release here 2 weeks before it occurs" would be very helpful -- say in the form of a feature-frozen RC release.
I have seen a lot of questions, both here and on other channels, including a slew of e-mails from librarians, wondering whether to install/support/recommend the beta or the current version and the thought that you could prepare a workshop on 4.0 and then have 5.0 appear "overnight" (even if initially update is optional) isn't great.
The addon zotero-better-biblatex is not compatible with Zotero v5.0
Please add compatibility for it.
Things work fine for me with the actual Zotero 4.
I will be happy to work with Zotero 5.X when it is published. Things have to grow, and growing takes time, as it is always.
I currently use Zotfile with the option to store files at a user-specified place/folder - so the other ones working with me (2 people - but im the one working with references) can easily find a pdf article they may need on our server.
So: if i understand right in Zotero 5 this will be the "normal" storage methode. Will my current structure work with Zotero 5 - means: update from Zotero 4 to 5 - taking over the file structure - or may this cause problems and i would somehow have to recreate the "normal" current structure - without zotfile and the specific folder?
Btw: thx for the great work. I tried used some other reference managers - but always came back to zotero - and not only because im an open source fan.
Linked files -- via ZotFile and otherwise -- are entirely unaffected by this, so you'll be able to keep doing exactly what you are doing now without any issues.
https://github.com/zotero/zotero/commit/b5424b4a7128a89b355fd627ace219abfdcf31cd
But you will need to install the standalone Zotero client (4.0 or 5.0) to continue using the full version of Zotero once we push out the new Firefox connector. We'll have a blog post with more details up soon, but as adamsmith says, the full version of Zotero for Firefox literally can't run on upcoming versions of Firefox, because Mozilla removed the extension architecture on which it's based. Nearly all browsing-related functionality from Zotero for Firefox has been added to the new connectors.
As for prompting, we'll be prompting existing Standalone users for the 4.0 -> 5.0 upgrade. Mozilla doesn't provide a way to prompt for extension updates, but the old version would just be disabled in an upcoming Firefox update anyway, and the new version doesn't touch your data. I would strongly discourage turning off any automatic updates. Running an outdated browser is extremely unsafe.
So why did I get this today?
Edit: though "Z icon at the bottom of my Screen" -- that hasn't been there for something like 2 years, so that's a bit confusing.
https://www.zotero.org/download/update.rdf
https://www.zotero.org/download/dev/update-4.0-branch.rdf
The only way @creik would have the connector is by installing it from this thread, the 5.0 page, or the download page (where it's now the default version in the Standalone section).