Thank you so much! This is fantastic.

This is awesome, thank you for putting it together! Is there a way to not use a collection key - to search through one’s entire library instead of limiting it to one collection?

Ok, it turns out the change is very simple. I will have the update posted soon, but If you want to access your full library in the meantime you can edit your own shortcut easily enough. I recommend duplicating the workflow first, in case you accidentally break something (trust me its easy to do).

All you need to do is edit the URL field (it comes after 'URL encode', and before 'Get contents of URL')

1. Delete this part from the URL: '/collections/CollectionKey/'
2. The first part of the URL should now look like: https://api.zotero.org/users/UserId/items?

Any questions let me know. I will have the update done by the end of the weekend.

This is so great, but I was wondering if there is a way to have this formatted to include websites as well?

When Zotero generates a citation from a website it normally includes the url as part of the citation. When I use the shortcut the url is left out.

The shortcut doesn’t really use the API in quite such a programmatic way. It is making a call to your library and getting the record in a JSON dictionary (or a formatted reference). It iterates through the records and does some crude RegEx to format the in-text citations. Whether or not the URL is included is either down to the citation style, or for the cite as you write citations I’ll have to add a condition to check for that key in the dictionary. It could be messy — or it could work.

However, it would be helpful if the request was more precise. Are you you’re referring to the bibliography shortcut? Or are your expecting the URL in-text? What style are you using? When you say it generates a citation, do you mean the desktop client?

If its in the bibliography you just need to add the style you need to the style dictionary. Have a look for the dictionary action in the shortcut that has the CSL styles, you can add as many as you like. If you cant work out how, let me know what style you need and I will add it.

If it’s in-text, as I say, that will require more work. I can’t say when I might be able to do that.

My best advice would be make a copy of the shortcuts, then have a to have a look at the API documentation and see if you can make it work for you. I’m not a developer, and I have managed to hack something together... honestly, they could all be improved. But they are there to be adapted if you want to give it a shot. I’m also happy to help if you get stuck hacking. Some communal work on these can only help.

I still have some updates to post, I will look at posting a quick how-to on making simple changes to the shortcuts.

Try this one: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/3971213ec3b54ebebff62eeca1d4fc59

Please let me know if it does what you want. Feel free to email me via the contact details on my site: https://Appademic.tech (see the icons in the left hand menu). I have been working on a single shortcut to combine many of these functions, I'm on a tight deadline at the moment, but once I clear some time I will finish it and post it to the site.

Cool, definitely do that. I’ll have a look at extracting the note when I have a chance. I haven’t tried using atom yet, it might be an option. Consider this a workaround for the moment.

@dstillman @jbpyn - thanks! when I run a query with format=json&include=citation

Instead of

Eleonory Gilburd, <\i>To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture<\/i> (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2018).

I get

{"library":{"id":40,"links":{"alternate":{"type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/www.zotero.org\/erazlogo"}},"type":"user","name":"erazlogo"},"links":{"alternate":{"type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/www.zotero.org\/erazlogo\/items\/S7ZLF2WJ"},"self":{"type":"application\/json","href":"https:\/\/api.zotero.org\/users\/40\/items\/S7ZLF2WJ"}},"key":"S7ZLF2WJ","meta":{"creatorSummary":"Gilburd","parsedDate":"2018","numChildren":0},"citation":"Gilburd, <\i>To See Paris and Die<\/i>.<\/span>","version":10959}

From this I infer that “citation”=short reference, not a full footnote, which is fine—it still works way better than a bibliographic reference for my purposes. I’m guessing I need to process the output somehow to extract the short reference from the string. [Edit: found tutorials online & working on this. Exciting!]

@erazlogo also, when debugging the shortcut put a 'quick look action' ahead of anything you are having trouble with, and a copy to clipboard action behind it. That will help, for example, when you get a json dictionary. It can be tricky o see what level you're trying to get to in the dictionary, but you can copy the text and paste it into a JSON parser like this: https://jsoneditoronline.org

Once the JSON is readable you can see what key you're trying to extract. In this case you are trying to get the 'citation' key.

There is also an incredibly useful action in shortcuts called 'view content graph'. If the data is not being returned as you expect it to, drop that action into the shortcut and it will allow you to look through the raw data.

Ps. I believe I have worked out the solution for this now, so just say the word and I will post it. But to reiterate my point above, I never really started to get the hang of this stuff until I had a problem I wanted to solve.

Ok, if anyone can tell me how to covert this string back into Cyrillic that I can display in Shortcuts, either with a regex expression or shortcuts action, please let me know. In shortcuts the code gets displayed, not the Cyrillic.

<i>III &#x41A;&#x438;&#x43D;&#x43E;&#x444;&#x435;&#x441;&#x442;&#x438;&#x432;&#x430;&#x43B;&#x44C; &#x421;&#x442;&#x440;&#x430;&#x43D; &#x410;&#x437;&#x438;&#x438; &#x438; &#x410;&#x444;&#x440;&#x438;&#x43A;&#x438; &#x432; &#x422;&#x430;&#x448;&#x43A;&#x435;&#x43D;&#x442;&#x435; [1974]--&#x41E;&#x442;&#x43A;&#x43B;&#x438;&#x43A;&#x438; &#x417;&#x430;&#x440;&#x443;&#x431;&#x435;&#x436;. &#x41F;&#x440;&#x435;&#x441;&#x441;&#x44B;</i>. &#x41C;&#x43E;&#x441;&#x43A;&#x432;&#x430;: &#x421;&#x43E;&#x44E;&#x437; &#x43A;&#x438;&#x43D;&#x435;&#x43C;&#x430;&#x442;&#x43E;&#x433;&#x440;&#x430;&#x444;&#x438;&#x441;&#x442;&#x43E;&#x432; &#x421;&#x421;&#x421;&#x420;, &#x41A;&#x43E;&#x43C;&#x438;&#x441;&#x441;&#x438;&#x44F; &#x43F;&#x43E; &#x43C;&#x435;&#x436;&#x434;&#x443;&#x43D;&#x430;&#x440;&#x43E;&#x434;&#x43D;&#x44B;&#x43C; &#x441;&#x432;&#x44F;&#x437;&#x44F;&#x43C;, 1975.

@bwiernik Thanks! I found a way to convert.

@babette888 try @jbpyn 's instructions at https://appademic.tech/referencing-on-ipad-zotero/

Hey @jbpyn after a fair bit of messing around I managed to get the Zotero Shortcut working on my iPad. I tried to buy you a coffee today and the page said you need to choose a payment mechanism before I can submit.

Hi, I downloaded the cite as you write shortcut on my iPad and I put all the info it asked. However, it keeps giving me invalid key when I run it. I don’t know what I'm doing wrong. Can someone please help?