Not sure I understand but:

« Each item can have zero or more creators, of different types, such as authors, editors, etc. To change the creator type, click the creator field label (e.g., “Author:”). A creator can be deleted by clicking the minus button at the end of the creator field, and additional creator fields can be added by clicking the plus button at the end of the last creator field. Creators can be reordered by clicking a creator field label and selecting “Move Up” or “Move Down”.

Each name field can be toggled between single and two field mode by clicking the “Switch to single field” / “Switch to two fields” buttons at the end of the creator field. Single field mode should be used to institutions (e.g., when the author is “Company A”), while two field mode (last name, first name) should be used for personal names. »

http://www.zotero.org/support/getting_stuff_into_your_library#editing_items

no, the et-al settings for the middle panel's creator column can't be customized.

Dear Community

I was wondering if this problem from 2013 was actually solved by today? I have the same problem as ph0987 mentioned:
I have several papers from an Author called Miller, but most of them are with 3 or 4 more authors (for each paper different combination of authors), which makes sense to abbreviate by et al., however, in the Zotero user-interface itself it would be very helpful to see more than just one author. For example, instead of:
- Miller et al. (title of work)
- Miller et al. (title of work)
- Miller et al. (title of work)
it would be VERY helpful to see:
- Miller, Carr, Zhang (title of work)
- Miller, Itkin, Janssen et al. (title of work) [there actually 3 more authors but displaying the first 3 is more than enough]

So, seeing only Miller et al. doesn't help much, since I don't memorize papers by the title, but rather by author's name.

So, is there a way to display the creator field in Zotero for at least 3 authors? Would really appreciate help here, I am new to Zotero (switched from Mendeley because of ZotFile) but this makes it really hard for me to navigate quickly through sources.

Thanks in advance! Much appreciated
tanasrad

One possible (rather heavyweight TBH) workaround is to install BBT and play around with the key generation pattern to show the number of authors you want, and show the citekey in the center column.