Feature Request: Two line view for references

bann.sfa · August 11, 2017

Just a quick feature request - when adding citations in Word, the view we get for the reference options that appear as you search below the red box is PERFECT and really space efficient.

Line 1: Title in BOLD
Line 2: First author et. al (Year), Journal [also includes page and issue - less critical] - not bold

It would be great to see exactly the same view for each reference in the Zotero 5 application - for consistency and because it is so much easier to read and use in my opinion in comparison to one line table with columns. Hope this can be added as an option. Thanks.

dstillman · August 16, 2017

For technical reasons, we're not currently able to make any changes like this to the middle pane, but we'll have more flexibility on this in the future, and we'll be considering these sorts of changes. (Note, though, that one downside of a multi-line display is that sorting becomes more awkward — it has to be done through a menu instead of just clicking columns. Also, while it's horizontally space efficient, which some people might prefer, it obviously means you can't see as many items on screen at once. So there are some trade-offs.)

bann.sfa · August 17, 2017

I think this should just be a view option - some people will prefer a single line table with columns, others will prefer the two line view: if you match the style in the Cite tool in Word it will still be more space efficient vertically than Mendeley which uses a two line view by default.

Regarding sorting - surely you could just have the various sort options as 'buttons' on the top line - exactly like you do for the table with the column headings? Then you simple click the preferred sort button and it will sort the two line references without actually changing their 'appearance'. This would be just as straightforward, if not more so, than table/column view sorting (because you can sort by things that are not actually IN the table - e.g. I sometimes want to sort by 'date added' but would prefer not to have this as a permanent column in table view: sort buttons would enable this).

Thanks