First, why are you so worried about these trivial details; so much so that you're willing to do something which makes no sense at all (going back to 1.0)?
Second, to understand why I ask the question this way, you probably should read up a little bit on CSS. For example, here's something on paragraph rules.
In Zotero 1.5, your notes are HTML. So each paragraph is essentially a discrete object, and the CSS rules simply describes how it should look. For example, the following rules will do a few things: first, it will remove the extra space between the paragraphs (as you wish), and second, it will automatically add the first-line indent on everything but first paragraphs.
Right. Thanks for these replies, and sorry for what appears to be a repost. The problem I am having is that in 1.5 the notes (which is a function I rely heavily on) is appearing in a form that does things I don't like (e.g. spacing between paragraphs) and just appears in a form that I am not used to (e.g. small text size, firefox spell check not recognizing, etc.).
Per suggestions on font size, etc. I was trying to change the css rules, however I do not have a userChrome.css file or any css file (yes, I am looking in the profile folder), and everywhere I read about how to create one tells me to just create one. For the life of me I can't figure out how to create this folder/file (?).
So maybe my anxieties could be alleviated if I could actually do what is suggested here and edit my css file, but I need to know how to create it first. Thanks.
Ok. Got it. Thanks for the help.
My issue now is that when I generate a report the new paragraph spacing I just created doesn't hold. The report has the automatic spacing between lines and leaves me with large gaps between my paragraphs.
That will get the appearance that you want, but line breaks are semantically different from paragraphs.
@mac: reports aren't yet very customizable. Can you just add the necessary CSS blocks to the generated HTML for now? Ideally, reports would eventually make use of identifiers that would allow styling with your userChrome.css file.
Mac, I'm still confused why this is sooo important to you? The great benefit of semantic markup languages like HTMl is they free you from having to worry this.
@noksagt -
I know. But I don't see how that would be a problem in this particular case. What mac really seems to want is for paragraphs not to be treated differently from line breaks - which is why I suggested using the linebreak instead of the paragraph break.
I know it's not the most elegant solution from a purist point of view. But is there a reason he shouldn't use it? (Beyond later customizability using css)
What mac really seems to want is for paragraphs not to be treated differently from line breaks ...
But that may be (and probably is) an entirely irrational desire.
It's not about purity for purity's sake; these details have practical consequences down the line. If, for example, mac later wants to publish their notes on a website, or to reliably import it into a word-processor, paragraphs really should be encoded as paragraphs.
Thanks for these comments and discussion, and apologies for the delay in replying here.
I am a historian of Imperial China and use zotero to organize books, articles, documents, notes, records, etc. I use zotero to keep extensive notes on almost everything I read, from outlines of books, to ideas about articles, to translations of documents. When I write, I like to print out these notes and spread them in front of me, shuffle them around, rearrange them on the table, and in short, just work from the paper.
In the previous version of zotero I could take notes in a way that allowed me to control the spacing, i.e. one return, one line, which allowed a means of organizing the page for titles and subtitles, etc. From the note I could then generate a report and print it out.
This 1.5 update is creating a few problems with this practice. Foremost was the problem of paragraph spacing in the note. I really just want the same kind of control that I previously had. For the most part, I have been able to fix this through the suggestions of rewriting the css code. However, the problem I have now is that when I generate a report there is way too much space between the paragraphs. Thus, I want to be able to generate a report and get the same formatting as my note.
Ideally, perhaps, I would be able to print from the note itself.
The same CSS you use to display the notes in Zotero is the same technology that displays it in your web browser. Not sure if there's a way to change the default CSS in the report outputs, but that's what you'd want.
I'm another user who finds the new paragraph spacing extremely frustrating. I use notes summarize papers for myself, and the spacing between them is one way I visually organize my information. I don't usually write in complete sentences and rarely ever in full paragraphs, but I keep common things together in one chunk and separate the chunks with white space. I would really appreciate the option to have more control over the formatting. Yes, I know I can use "shift+enter" for a line break instead, but now all my old notes have way too much space in them and it's driving me crazy. I'm also finding it a little painful to retrain myself to learn to use "shift+enter" every time.
I have not tried the userChrome.css file option yet because I'm still confused about where the file should be and what it should say and I don't have time to comb the forum now (I'll try it later.)
However, I think zotero strives to be user friendly and the note editor is not user-friendly right now. You can't expect all zotero users to be comfortable with css (I'm not). Most of my frustrations are that I expect it to act like other text editors I'm comfortable with, i.e. notepad or wordpad. Several times in the last hour I've found myself gritting my teeth as I try to wrestle copied text into a numbered or bulleted list, the spacing jumps around and it's driving me crazy.
One option is to give users the ability to define their own format. Another is to give a "plain text" option. I think the second should be really straightforward to implement.
I suppose I could just use the html editor as a plain text editor, but it's not going to fix all my over-spaced old notes. I expect that when I have the time to look into the css modifications will help...but I still believe the formatting in the note editor needs to be more user friendly.
Just so there's no confusion, Zotero isn't doing something arbitrary here—in fact, it's not defining the paragraph spacing at all, which means the default paragraph spacing in Firefox is being applied. (Example #1: Create a text file with "<p>Paragraph 1</p><p>Paragraph 2</p>", save it as test.html, and open it in Firefox. Example #2: Load a New York Times article.) This is just how HTML is rendered by default in most browsers.
But we could probably offer paragraph spacing as an option in the preferences, along with default font size, and have it apply to both notes and reports.
I don't usually write in complete sentences and rarely ever in full paragraphs, but I keep common things together in one chunk and separate the chunks with white space.
So maybe you ought to be a little creative about how you think about this? For example, I typically don't have long notes; I rather use a lot of little notes. Perhaps your impulse to "keep common things together" suggests a similar approach?
Also, when I want to write down some quick ideas (e.g. not "complete sentences"), I often use the list feature.
One option is to give users the ability to define their own format. Another is to give a "plain text" option. I think the second should be really straightforward to implement.
I think both make sense. Users should be able to set the default font at least in the UI.
I suppose I could just use the html editor as a plain text editor, but it's not going to fix all my over-spaced old notes. I expect that when I have the time to look into the css modifications will help...but I still believe the formatting in the note editor needs to be more user friendly.
"User friendly" is in the eye of the beholder. I think once you "get" CSS and see its practical value, you will find that editors which require you to manually format everything are a major PITA.
It's the same difference as manually formatting everything in your word-processor, vs. using styles. Once you get used to the latter, the former seems positively masochistic (something I keep telling my students, but not always successfully!).
Thanks for your discussion on this Dan and bdarcus.
I too have been struggling with getting my head around the use of TinyMCE as an editor. After thinking though it from the HTML and CSS standpoint it all begins to make a lot more sense now.
Is there anywhere on the site that has an introduction to the editor, how it functions and possibly CSS? If not this would be a handy addition.
Upgrade Storage
Second, to understand why I ask the question this way, you probably should read up a little bit on CSS. For example, here's something on paragraph rules.
In Zotero 1.5, your notes are HTML. So each paragraph is essentially a discrete object, and the CSS rules simply describes how it should look. For example, the following rules will do a few things: first, it will remove the extra space between the paragraphs (as you wish), and second, it will automatically add the first-line indent on everything but first paragraphs.
p {
font-size: 1em;
line-height: 1.5em;
margin: 0;
text-align: left;
}
p+p {
text-indent: 1.5em;
}
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/6556/
If you are writing paragraphs & wish to change the look, you could edit your css file, adjusting margin-bottom and margin-top.
If you want single spacing because you are writing preformatted text, then you can select "preformatted" from the styles drop down.
Per suggestions on font size, etc. I was trying to change the css rules, however I do not have a userChrome.css file or any css file (yes, I am looking in the profile folder), and everywhere I read about how to create one tells me to just create one. For the life of me I can't figure out how to create this folder/file (?).
So maybe my anxieties could be alleviated if I could actually do what is suggested here and edit my css file, but I need to know how to create it first. Thanks.
My issue now is that when I generate a report the new paragraph spacing I just created doesn't hold. The report has the automatic spacing between lines and leaves me with large gaps between my paragraphs.
@mac: reports aren't yet very customizable. Can you just add the necessary CSS blocks to the generated HTML for now? Ideally, reports would eventually make use of identifiers that would allow styling with your userChrome.css file.
I know. But I don't see how that would be a problem in this particular case. What mac really seems to want is for paragraphs not to be treated differently from line breaks - which is why I suggested using the linebreak instead of the paragraph break.
I know it's not the most elegant solution from a purist point of view. But is there a reason he shouldn't use it? (Beyond later customizability using css)
It's not about purity for purity's sake; these details have practical consequences down the line. If, for example, mac later wants to publish their notes on a website, or to reliably import it into a word-processor, paragraphs really should be encoded as paragraphs.
I am a historian of Imperial China and use zotero to organize books, articles, documents, notes, records, etc. I use zotero to keep extensive notes on almost everything I read, from outlines of books, to ideas about articles, to translations of documents. When I write, I like to print out these notes and spread them in front of me, shuffle them around, rearrange them on the table, and in short, just work from the paper.
In the previous version of zotero I could take notes in a way that allowed me to control the spacing, i.e. one return, one line, which allowed a means of organizing the page for titles and subtitles, etc. From the note I could then generate a report and print it out.
This 1.5 update is creating a few problems with this practice. Foremost was the problem of paragraph spacing in the note. I really just want the same kind of control that I previously had. For the most part, I have been able to fix this through the suggestions of rewriting the css code. However, the problem I have now is that when I generate a report there is way too much space between the paragraphs. Thus, I want to be able to generate a report and get the same formatting as my note.
Ideally, perhaps, I would be able to print from the note itself.
I have not tried the userChrome.css file option yet because I'm still confused about where the file should be and what it should say and I don't have time to comb the forum now (I'll try it later.)
However, I think zotero strives to be user friendly and the note editor is not user-friendly right now. You can't expect all zotero users to be comfortable with css (I'm not). Most of my frustrations are that I expect it to act like other text editors I'm comfortable with, i.e. notepad or wordpad. Several times in the last hour I've found myself gritting my teeth as I try to wrestle copied text into a numbered or bulleted list, the spacing jumps around and it's driving me crazy.
One option is to give users the ability to define their own format. Another is to give a "plain text" option. I think the second should be really straightforward to implement.
I suppose I could just use the html editor as a plain text editor, but it's not going to fix all my over-spaced old notes. I expect that when I have the time to look into the css modifications will help...but I still believe the formatting in the note editor needs to be more user friendly.
But we could probably offer paragraph spacing as an option in the preferences, along with default font size, and have it apply to both notes and reports.
Also, when I want to write down some quick ideas (e.g. not "complete sentences"), I often use the list feature. I think both make sense. Users should be able to set the default font at least in the UI. "User friendly" is in the eye of the beholder. I think once you "get" CSS and see its practical value, you will find that editors which require you to manually format everything are a major PITA.
It's the same difference as manually formatting everything in your word-processor, vs. using styles. Once you get used to the latter, the former seems positively masochistic (something I keep telling my students, but not always successfully!).
I too have been struggling with getting my head around the use of TinyMCE as an editor. After thinking though it from the HTML and CSS standpoint it all begins to make a lot more sense now.
Is there anywhere on the site that has an introduction to the editor, how it functions and possibly CSS? If not this would be a handy addition.
-Tim