Zotero erasing abstract when I attach a file to the record

cpsyctc · March 8, 2020

I think this has been stable for me for a while, probably through a few upgrades. I'm now on 5.0.84 on Ubuntu 18.04. What happens is that I create a new entry, copy and paste an abstract into the abstract field and then "Attach stored copy of file ..." which works, but the bizarre bug is that the abstract that I'd pasted in immediately disappears! I can't see that this has been reported before. Any thoughts?

dstillman · March 8, 2020

You need to close the Abstract field before doing the "Attach Stored Copy of File…", either by clicking somewhere outside of it or pressing Shift-Enter.

It's the same for any field — if you have an open field and use a menu option (e.g., "New Child Note"), the contents of the field will be lost, as if you had pressed Esc to cancel out of it.

Fields are saved automatically if you click on another field or switch to another item, but not if you use a menu option. We can try to fix that, but it might be fairly complicated. I've created an issue to track it.

cpsyctc · March 9, 2020

Thanks. Makes sense and easy to remember so I don't think this is a serious bug with any priority though I guess I think that clicking any menu option probably ought to be a focus shirt on a par with shifting to another field so think it should probably stay on a bug fix list! Good luck. Hugely appreciate Zotero and recommend it to everyone!