Zotero connector not showing option to save .pdf to Zotero. Report ID: 1480646245

LeonBarmuta
Upgraded to Zotero 5.0 from Zotero 4 for Firefox yesterday. Installed connector for Firefox. When I click on a .pdf from a search in a library catalogue (that's a concrete and glass library not a Zotero one!). I no longer see an item offering to save to Zotero. I have to download the .pdf and then drag into Zotero manually.

(I also have posted about problems with syncing .pdfs with debug id: D1071960772, so they might be related.

Thanks for your help!

Leon.
  • dstillman
    edited July 22, 2017
    I no longer see an item offering to save to Zotero.
    I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There's always an option to save these days — there's just a toolbar button that's always present. When viewing a PDF, the tooltip should say "Save to Zotero (PDF)" and it should save the PDF directly to Zotero.
  • LeonBarmuta
    Yep, that's what happened with Zotero 4.0 for Firefox. No all I get from the tooltip is two options: "open with" and "save file", no save to Zotero option.

    I've removed and reinstalled the Firefox connector and still have the same issue. Running Firefox 54.0.1 (32-bit) - which it says is the latest.
  • dstillman
    Oh, you're referring to clicking on a PDF and getting the Firefox open/save dialog? Yes, we're no longer able to modify that dialog because of changes to the Firefox extension architecture. But if you set Firefox to show PDFs in the browser, you can view the PDF and then click the Zotero save button normally, or click the download icon in the PDF viewer to get the open/save dialog as before.
  • dstillman
    I've added a documentation article for this:

    https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/no_firefox_open_save_option
  • LeonBarmuta
    Hmm... already had that turned on, but this might be a proxy thing.

    When I try to download from my University's library collection, the blue rectangular Zotero icon in the Firefox toolbar says: Save to Zotero (Web Page with snapshot, while the download icon in pdf view window just gives the options open in a viewer or download to a folder on disk.

    If I try the same thing on a .pdf from a government website, the Zotero toolbar icon says 'Save to Zotero (pdf)' (yay!), and still the same 2 options from the pdf viewer window.

    BTW: does this mean that the retrieval of meta data on the way thorough saving no longer happens? (I can do it manually once I've dragged the pdf in, but that was such a nice feature.

    Oh, and in your post, Firefox now calls 'preferences' 'options' -- took me while to decipher that!
  • dstillman
    If the PDF is actually being presented in a frame on an HTML webpage, you'll unfortunately get the "Web Page" option. You can right-click and select This Frame -> Show Only This Frame and then save it to Zotero..

    We'll see if we can reliably detect framed PDFs and offer to save them automatically. In the meantime, I've added this to the documentation
    BTW: does this mean that the retrieval of meta data on the way thorough saving no longer happens?
    Not currently, but we'll be automating that process in future versions.
  • dstillman
    Well, a follow-up question: when you view that PDF, is there anything else around it, or does the PDF viewer take up the full browser content pane? We might be able to detect the latter. If the site is adding content around it, there's not really much we can do, since it'd be hard to know that someone didn't want to save the surrounding webpage.
  • dstillman
    edited July 23, 2017
    But we may also be able to add a save option from the Zotero Connector submenu when right-clicking on a framed PDF — that already works in Chrome, so we'll look into adding that to the Firefox connector.
  • LeonBarmuta
    Our library serves up both things with frames and things without - depends on the provider. The " right-click and select This Frame -> Show Only This Frame " works most of the time for those with lots of stuff around it. " This Frame -> Open Frame in New Window" worked for the document that failed using the first method.

    Actually, most of the stuff from our library comes with extraneous stuff around the .pdf - publishers do like to let users know how wonderful they are in allowing us to view their journals!

    Thanks for your help . I'll check out the Chrome extension when I get a chance later. Better do some real work now.

    Cheers,

    Leon.

  • adamsmith
    For most publishers that show PDFs in an html frame, we should be importing the PDF as an attachment to metadata when you click the Zotero icon. What are some example publishers? sample urls?
  • LeonBarmuta
    Hi,

    Sorry to take so long to get back to this. After a bit of messing around, I think I've found one publisher that reliably throws an error if I try to use the download to Zotero button after doing the 'This Frame..' thing.

    The journal is the 'Australasian Journal of Ecotoxicology' published by the Australasian Society for Ecotoxicology and provided to our library (University of Tasmania) by an outfit called 'Informit Health Collection'.

    Not sure if that's enough info to help you in this.

    Leon.
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