Cancel or Undo button for Add Item by Identifier

  • edited August 3, 2018
    This is a slightly different issue, but might help with the original request too.

    When attempting to import with the magic wand button, via DOI or ISBN, a cancel or undo button would be useful as well. Or simply an easy way to see the latest import.

    It's possible to add an additional column to sort by date added, but that takes quite a while to do every time, including resorting back to normal after. It's usually not necessarily because the article pops up as expected in the Zotero window, but not always.

    If something goes wrong, Zotero can't locate what I was trying to find, and it stalls for a bit. Sometimes nothing happens after that. But once in a while, I get a mystery entry that ends up somewhere in my collection that I don't find until months later. Basically I thought Zotero had given up, and I had moved on to importing another way or entering by hand. Somehow behind the scenes, something else was added to my library!

    These extra entries are usually from PubMed and absolutely irrelevant to my research, often amusingly so-- usually something very technical about chemistry or medicine. (I don't know if that's just because statistically most publications in the world are of those genres, or something about the way Zotero searches for fallback data, etc.)

    This doesn't really matter in the long run, but it's weird to find a mystery paper in my references. It's confusing because I have several thousand items in my collection so I don't often skim through and might not notice something anyway.

    So, in short, having a bit more active control, or notifications, on import would be nice.

    Another option I'd like to see would be a "not yet tagged" (e.g., untagged) search feature, which would also deal with this for me at least.

    These issues aren't critical, but could prevent some confusion! And the points made by @wmayner above. I can't be certain whether the mystery paper effect has ever happened with Zotero Connector through my browser, but it seems possible if there's some issue with the metadata. Usually it's just an unknown DOI in the magic wand lookup, and often my fault with a typo.
  • (I think this should be in a separate thread to not confuse things).
    When attempting to import with the magic wand button, via DOI or ISBN, a cancel or undo button would be useful as well. Or simply an easy way to see the latest import.
    The latest import from add by identifier is automatically selected in Zotero.
    Another option I'd like to see would be a "not yet tagged" (e.g., untagged) search feature, which would also deal with this for me at least.
    Saved search:
    Tag -- does not contain -- %
    with "Show only top-level item" checked.

    The PMID import issue should mostly just be fixable at that level simply by making the rule for what sorts of numbers are send to pubmed when other identifiers fail stricter, and we've been wanting to do that for a while.
  • edited August 3, 2018
    (I think this should be in a separate thread to not confuse things).
    Sorry. My main point was that a "recently added" or "undo" button would help for other reasons too.

    The latest import from add by identifier is automatically selected in Zotero.
    Not consistently for me. It usually pops up. But if I'm doing something else, or in another window, or something those mystery entries end up sneaking into my library. Maybe it's especially if I try to import something else after it seems like the import has failed (it's taking too long)? And sometimes I believe that actually multiple items are imported, I think because Zotero has split my DOI (etc.) into multiple parts and is guessing about what some segment of it might refer to. It's rare, but happens enough I find these mystery entries.

    The PMID import issue should mostly just be fixable at that level simply by making the rule for what sorts of numbers are send to pubmed when other identifiers fail stricter, and we've been wanting to do that for a while.
    Yes. As I said, it seems like sometimes it's splitting my input (e.g., a single DOI) into multiple fetches if that input is not originally recognize as one unit, or maybe if no results are found. It happens so rarely I can't describe any specific patterns, but it definitely happens enough that I've noticed it, just not enough to submit a bug report or mention anything, not until reading the thread here.

    For the not-tagged search, thanks!

    (PS: Is there a list of forum markup somewhere? I can't figure out what the quote tag is for example.)
  • @dstillman Can we pull the discussion of Add by Identitifier to a new thread?
  • edited August 3, 2018
    In case someone wants to try to debug this, if it helps here's an entry I just found while cleaning my collection using @adamsmith 's saved search:

    Begin, R., T. Racine & J. C. Roy. 1975. Value of capillary blood gas analyses in the management of acute respiratory distress. The American Review of Respiratory Disease 112(6). 879–881.

    Note the PMID is saved in extra as 936, which suggests this was saved because of a very short part of an old DOI or ISBN I tried to search for.

    And another, this one is PMID 4004:
    Gilot, B., G. Pautou & G. Ain. 1975. [Presence of Culiseta (Climacura) melanura (Coquillet, 1902) in Quebec]. Annales De Parasitologie Humaine Et Comparée 50(5). 649–650.
  • edited August 3, 2018
    FWIW, we fixed the problem of shorter numbers being interpreted as PMIDs in Zotero 5.0.48 in June. If you find new examples of identifiers being added incorrectly, start a new thread and let us know.
  • Oh, great. Yes, these probably are just leftovers. I came across them from time to time, but didn't have any systematic way to find them all before now. So solved in both ways.
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