Zotero & iPhone

dhsu800
I love Zotero. I use it on my Mac desktop, Mac laptop, and Windows work desktop.

I just got an iPhone, which I also love. I'm wondering if there will be any way to access my Zotero information, either through a web front-end or directly?

David
  • Tjowens
    Zotero 2.0 will allow you to access and to some extent manipulate your collection through a web interface. When this feature launches you should be able to interact with your collection through your iPhone.
  • dstillman
    http://www.zotero.org/blog/browse-your-zotero-library-online/
  • bdarcus
    Nice Dan. I take it there's no reason the iPhone-oriented styling won't also work for other similar smart phones (say the new google android stuff)?
  • dstillman
    Not that I know of. The iPhone interface is done completely using CSS, served via CSS3 media queries ('media="only screen and (max-device-width: 480px)"'), without any Apple-specific properties.

    The only potentially tricky issue is scaling. We're using the "viewport" META tag that Apple recommends to control scaling, and I don't know how that will be handled by Android, but we can certainly adjust as necessary. (The current behavior is also a little non-optimal in this regard, since it scales the screen when you shift to landscape rather than displaying more text at the same size. I think Twitter's iPhone interface gets this right, so we'll have to see what they're doing.)

    This is really just a proof-of-concept, and it's possible that as we add more features (e.g., editing) we'll need to use some of the WebKit-specific stuff that hasn't been codified into standards yet. But Android may very well support the same properties, and, either way, we'll do our best to keep things compatible.
  • studiosus
    edited October 15, 2008
    Very useful!

    But when trying to access it via Nokia N78 (Symbian OS, S60 rel. 3.2), the username/password field is unaccessible (see: http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6084/img1270sp3.jpg). Screen rotation also won't help, only zooming page to 50% will reveal the fields.

    In case possible, maybe you could develop in the future also an additional and independent Symbian/WM/Android/etc programme, where the notes are stored in the phone?
  • josephzizys
    Just an update from my own browsing, beta.zotero now appears to be offline, but syncing with 2.0 beta works ok, and you can brows your collection with the iphone, but the page is not optimised for the iphone.

    A truly fantastic feature would be a bookmarklet that could save just a title, date, auther and url to the iphone for zotero syncing and updating later.

    anyone know if this is in the works?
  • wjeck
    Just a bump to this tread and a request for a mobile app that permits syncing to zotero servers by download. This would allow reading offline (for those with iPod Touch or otherwise without internet range). This would be a killer app in my life.
  • Thomas_
    Up!
    Basically, being able not only to access the library online, but also to annotate material would be awesome. That means, not only access to the references, but also to the file sync storage, with the possibility of downloading some elements to sync them back with annotations.
  • sethkastner
    To me, the main benefit of mobile Zotero access is the ability to share sources and references anywhere. I would like it if there was a mechanism in the library web interface to generate a reference formatted for easy copying and emailing.
    I've had success accessing my collection and PDF attachments on my iPhone, though there are some log-in quirks.
    For anyone who wants access to library files for sharing or offline reading, you can find apps that will let you download and email files (Goodreader works well for me).
    I'm eager for the new mobile site and, yes, a native app would be fantastic.
  • georgeroberts
    Yup! An ability to interact with libraries on an Android wd be ace! Simple add, update, annotate (notes) and then sync back to laptop/desktop.

    Presumably a 2-3 year plan has to see a lot of the functionality & storage moving into the cloud. When can we expect to insert citations & generate bibliographies in Google Apps?
  • Bionatsci
    Presumably a 2-3 year plan has to see a lot of the functionality & storage moving into the cloud.
    Just a quick note to say that a completely cloud-based system would be a deal-breaker for me. I have no problem at all with Zotero's functionality being accessible through the cloud (in fact that would be great), as long as I have a local copy of my library also. I need to be able to backup my library locally, and work on documents with full functionality in places where there is no internet access (a case in point - there has been a power failure which wiped out the internet access in my university this weekend, not being able to access and work with Zotero during this time would have been a serious problem).

    Sorry for the slight rant, I just have very strong views about local access to important data. Living where I do (rural North Wales) internet access is too unreliable, and cellphone reception too poor in places for me to be comfortable "living in the cloud".
  • miraclewimp
    edited April 2, 2010
    There's no real issues with a cloud model, as long as it has a backup feature of some sort (more visiting the cloud frequently than living there ;) GoogleDocs is a nice model for the auto backup every 15sec or so of non-use (typing, etc), and Apple's iDisk is a nice model for the ability to maintain a local copy of everything in the cloud.

    as long as all the options are considered, I'm sure the Zotero folks will continue to make us happy little researchers in this increasingly digital age.

    mobile apps for Blackberry, iPhone/iPod Touch and Android users would be a rad step!! (GoodReader is okay, though)
  • tschuele
    Hi there!

    What's the status of this discussion? Are there plans for a zotero-iPhone-App?
    Would be great to have the ability to annotate, jot down notes, create reference-libraries etc. on the iPhone. offline/syncing option would be nice, also!

    Regards
    Thomas
  • issaacxu
    Ye, I am using Evernote now, it's great for note taken and sync among different platforms including iphone/mac/pc but not so exciting for reference manager, unlike Papers or Endnotes. If Zotero can also sync like Evernote, I definitely will switch to it.
    The other problem with Zotero is when I save multiple Medline search results, Firefox basically is unresponsive until the whole saving is done, which is about one minutes for 20 entities!
  • adamsmith
    I don't think there are any efforts planned for an iphone/Ipad or related app on the Zotero dev side - but with server and api documentation now released or on the verge of being released, nothing should keep third party developers form developing such an app.

    What's going to happen from the Zotero side is probably enhanced online possibilities.
  • brekhusr
    So basically I can look at what I have already got in my library from my iPod Touch, but I can't browse the web and add items to the library, since I can't get Firefox on my iPod Touch. Hope Zotero develops a mobile app soon; Mendeley has already.
  • adamsmith
    some option like this is planned - Sean made it sound like it would happen sooner rather than later. I think it's going to be in the form of a better web-interface rather than a specific i-phone/i-pod/droid app.
  • yosttheskanker
    what happened to the beta.zotero.org site? It would be super useful for mobile browsers. :/
  • ajlyon
    Judging from the present content of the front page, it looks like something is in place for mobile browsers (http://www.zotero.org/static/images/index/features/browse-from-mobile-devices.png). Does this not show up when you view your library?
  • yosttheskanker
    Yeah, all I get when I view my library is the normal Library page that is hard to view on a mobile phone.
  • ajlyon
    In that case, this must be something that hasn't yet been released. Hold tight-- maybe this is the big announcement due tomorrow. Although I'd like to see something, well, bigger. Something that would make Zotero better at its core feature set.
  • adamsmith
    I figured the announcement would be about the standalone version?
  • ajlyon
    Maybe. That wouldn't really be a new, big feature. But then again, not everyone in the Zotero community monitors the trac commit timeline, so my standards of "new" are probably not universal. It's too much to expect Sean and Dan to have been running a skunk works project, but I can hope.
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