Upgrade StorageZotero 5.0 multiple windows of zotero standalone
Hi,
first of all thank you for all the great work on zotero, which features very high on my favorite softwares list. Upgrading to the new version of zotero, I had to switch from firefox version to standalone version, and love the new rss feed eatures.
However, I find myself missing one feature of the firefox version that I used all of the time while researching/writing, the ability to have multiple firefox windows with multiple zotero pannels open. I would have one windows with some filters selected, while another would have a different set of filters selected, and I could compare the item in both, or rapidly select one on a different topic while still having the main topic selected.
I am not sure how much of a edge case it is, but is there any way of having two zotero windows open at the same time? Or a tabbed system? Or anything that would easily make me switch between selections?
If not I guess I will have to get used to it :)
first of all thank you for all the great work on zotero, which features very high on my favorite softwares list. Upgrading to the new version of zotero, I had to switch from firefox version to standalone version, and love the new rss feed eatures.
However, I find myself missing one feature of the firefox version that I used all of the time while researching/writing, the ability to have multiple firefox windows with multiple zotero pannels open. I would have one windows with some filters selected, while another would have a different set of filters selected, and I could compare the item in both, or rapidly select one on a different topic while still having the main topic selected.
I am not sure how much of a edge case it is, but is there any way of having two zotero windows open at the same time? Or a tabbed system? Or anything that would easily make me switch between selections?
If not I guess I will have to get used to it :)
Having different views saved does not help, as I specifically want to have different windows open that I then distribute over different workspaces. Please consider adding this functionality to Zotero standalone.
It does not seem much, but when I'm doing such work over my references my mind is already full of dates, authors names and paper titles, and the task gets much more frustrating by losing time because of a sudden blank in how to get back to the paper I was half a minute before. The way Zotero interface is right now, you can't work with two things at the same time (edit a note and search for something related) and this is very frustrating.
We might be able to add the ability to open multiple views in a future version.
But to be clear, we're in no way recommending using multiple profiles to display multiple windows — using multiple profiles is an advanced configuration and not a good solution to this. This is just a feature that doesn't exist currently.
Thanks. This did work. But so you may want to adjust the page you directed me to - because it is slightly misleading. For others struggling with the same problem: what I did on my Windows machine was to go into my Zotero folder that has the Zotero executable (in my case C:\Program Files (x86)\Zotero); to open a command prompt (or - in my case - a Powershell prompt); to type .\zotero.exe -p. (PowerShell does not load commands from the current location by default, so this is the way to execute 'trusted' programs). And that command did open the profile manager that we also had with Firefox and allowed me to define a new Profile folder.
1) click on the 'minimize' window button (yellow, middle), or instead type 'cmd-M'
-- this causes Zotero to minimize into the macOS dock on the bottom of the screen
2) Now choose on the Zotero menu (Window... Zotero), or merely type 'cmd-0'
-- the result: it will pop open a new Zotero window
We've seemingly arrived!
I can then, for example, move the second Zotero window to another monitor, and actually browse different material in the database, and drag copy between collections, etc.
I haven't spent too much time with this, but it seems to reliably work.
In the "Window" menu, there are now two instances of "Zotero" that can be chosen to make active.
Any reasons why I should not use this 'workaround'?
It would seem to address some of the concerns on this thread, at least for the macOS platform.
Best,
-- madison
I'm busy sorting about ~1,000 sources into a hierarchy of ~60 subcollections I'm building, and it's been driving me NUTS that every single time I do anything with a subcollection -- rename it, move it, create another subcollection below it -- that I lose my place in my overall list of sources. And, vice-versa, that every time I go back to my list of sources, I lose my scroll position in the subcollections.
I was so frustrated I found this forum post... and your hacks works. I can keep two windows side-by-side and drag from one to the other without losing my place! Hallelujah.
It's working OK but not perfectly though -- I can drag and drop between windows onto folders and tags no problem. But still somewhat frustrating, when I create a new subcollection it navigates to that subcollection in *all* windows.
Still, it's a big improvement. But I'd 100% welcome multiple windows as an officially supported feature. (NOT tabs, but windows -- my main use case is drag & drop without losing your place in either one.)
The other day I think I was able to open multiple profiles just by adding the profile name in the command call. Today, I was not able to do that until I tried adding the -no-remote command-line flag.
What would be the cause of that intermittent behavior? (Windows, Zotero, Firefox,...) Is there a way to avoid that?
While resolving duplicates I kept having to go switch between search and "Duplicates" to resolve conflicts, e.g. one duplicate having the wrong file type or a file being attached to the wrong entry.
Afterwards I am now trying to resolve the remaining PDFs, where metadata could not be obtained. In order to check if an equivalent item already exists, I have to jump back and forth between search and "unfiled items".
Having multiple views is a very powerful workflow enhancement, please add it!
Meanwhile the "create second profile" version works as a workaround. The downside being, that it won't work for purely-offline profiles or when the internet is not working.
@acortinois We must not give up :P
On a side note, I think people asked for the multiple windows (to edit the same file) too for vs code, years ago. But seems in the case of vs code, there's something intrinsically limiting that makes this feature very hard to realize. I don't know if it is also the case here for Zotero. Would love to get some clarification from the developer.