Zotero downloading other documents

gabriella.reynolds
I downloaded Zotero and the Zotero connecter to my computer yesterday. This morning, I found that Zotero had downloaded hundreds of javascript files each with a title of a journal or place to find information, such as National Library of Norway. When I open them, it is a javascript script and says it's part of Zotero. My questions are 1) is this actually part of Zotero and 2) will it continue to download files.

Thanks
  • adomasven
    Do you use Safari?
  • adamsmith
    but yes, the javascript files are definitely part of Zotero -- they handle the import of data from websites. How do you know Zotero downloaded them? (they should just come with the installation). Where were they downloaded to?
  • RintzeRintze
    the javascript files are definitely part of Zotero -- they handle the import of data from websites
    And they're called Zotero translators. See e.g. https://github.com/zotero/translators/blob/master/National Library of Norway.js and https://www.zotero.org/support/translators.

    Zotero stores its translators inside the Zotero data directory (https://www.zotero.org/support/zotero_data#locating_your_zotero_library), and Zotero checks every 24 hours for translator updates which it then download to that same folder.
  • gabriella.reynolds
    I used chrome. They appeared in my finder window, each as a separately downloaded file.
  • adamsmith
    Could that just have been under "Recent Files"? Or how do you identify them as downloaded?
  • dstillman
    Yes, looks like "All My Files", which I think is the default view, shows JavaScript files.

    We should probably move those auxiliary files back to the profile directory and leave only the database and 'storage' files in the data directory.

    @gabriella.reynolds: These files are part of Zotero and are going into your Zotero data directory. You can ignore them for now, and we'll see if we can get them out of All My Files (though it's mostly just not a very helpful view).
  • bwiernik
    The locate (and potentially styles) folders are also something that we need to sometimes direct users to (e.g., if they want to add a new lookup engine in Zotero 5), so those should hopefully stay in the data directory.
  • dstillman
    edited September 21, 2017
    If we did this we'd put locate and styles in the profile directory too. The profile directory is still accessible, and we have documentation for it (and we could also have a button to get to it from the prefs if we really wanted). We moved the data directory to ~/Zotero because files that users open shouldn't be in Application Support/AppData (and it caused problems for macOS Preview), but JS/CSL/JSON files, which the vast majority of users won't ever need to touch directly, are pretty appropriate for Application Support. And polluting "All My Files" with things users shouldn't ever open doesn't make for a good experience (although I assume we're also now polluting it with lots auxiliary snapshot files too…).

    (In practice, the data directory subdirs might remain semi-active, because we'd probably leave migration/cleanup code in place for years.)
  • kristinajenzen
    same problem here. I understand that all the files are part of Zotero, bit I don't want to have them in "all my files". They "spam" everything, since I din't use them at all. So what is the best thing you suggest I should do now?
  • adamsmith
    I don't think you really can do anything except not use the "All My Files" view at this time.
  • kristinajenzen
    Will that is quite unfortunate. Will that problem be changed? I don't remember having this problem before, and I used Zotero for a lot of my work
  • adamsmith
    See dstillman's posts above -- likely will change. The reason is the changed location of the Zotero data folder, which, among other things, was required because Preview refused to save files to the old location.
  • RintzeRintze
    edited September 24, 2017
    In the meantime, you can exclude the "Zotero" folder from All My Files by adding the folder to the Privacy tab in the Spotlight System Preferences. (discovered via https://superuser.com/a/322143)
  • bwiernik
    (Though you may want to specifically exclude translators, styles, and locate, so that attachments are still visible there if you prefer.)
  • DWL-SDCA
    I know that everyone has their own way of doing things and organizing their files. However, I am _very_ curious about why you are using the all-my-files view in Finder. I see only a useless jumble of files -- literally all the files on my disk -- without any meaningful organization. I've used this view only once and that was to identify files of a certain type that were no longer needed and which were scattered across several directories. Although I consider myself somewhat experienced with computers; I find that view just short of frightening. Having a long list of files without any indication of directory structure is a good way for me to inadvertently delete something important. If I have been overlooking some productive way this file-view can be useful please let me know in reply. Thank you. (My apologies for taking this thread off-topic.)

  • dstillman
    "All My Files" was removed in High Sierra. More details: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/304978/#Comment_304978
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