[Feature request] [Zotero Connector] Create new collection when saving; add cancel button

wmayner · August 2, 2018

First, thanks for all the hard work on this awesome project! I just switched from Mendeley (because Elsevier is evil) and I'm loving it.

1. When saving an item from the web with the Zotero Connector, it is not possible to create a new collection in which to save the item. This would be very useful.

2. If I try to get around this by creating the collection in the Zotero app after already having clicked the Connector, the Connector's list of collections is not updated to reflect the new collection I just created in Zotero (i.e., the list of collections is only populated once, when the Connector is clicked). This is arguably unexpected behavior, and necessitates adding a duplicate item (when I click the Connector again).

3. There seems to be no way to “cancel” adding an item with the Connector. This would be useful in and of itself, and would also prevent the issue with adding duplicates described above.

Cheers,
Will

adamsmith · August 3, 2018

I'm afraid all of these are going to be very hard to change given the way collection assignment on import works (which is to place the item in my library, get the list of collections from Zotero, then allow user to pick a collection to which the item is moved. The absence of a cancel button is the flip side of the fact that import does work with a single click. You can only have one or the other.

That said, I don't understand what any of that has to do with duplicates. It's not like you can't move items once they're saved to Zotero?

wmayner · August 3, 2018

I see. Even if the connector does work on the first click, a cancel button could be implemented as a deletion of the reference that was just added.

You're right about the duplicates, but the thing is that it's not as easy to find the reference that was added in Zotero as it is to simply click the connector again.

dstillman · August 3, 2018

A future version of the Connector will show collection changes from Zotero in the target selector without reloading the page. So you'd be able to add a new collection in Zotero, switch back to the browser, click the save button again (which will just reopen the popup without creating a duplicate), and select the new collection.