Feature request for Word / LibreOffice plugin: ignore "et al", look for DOI during search

We would appreciate if Zotero could have these features in Microsoft Word / LibreOffice Writer plugin search for item:
- ignore "et al" (or equivalent, if we use localized version of Zotero) if we enter string like "Author1 et al, 2020" into search field.
- option to search item by its DOI too (not only by author name, title, date).

I hope more users would appreciate this functionality too.

Thanks in advance.
  • Can you explain why you would want to do these things?
  • For et al, I find myself commonly typing Author et al 2010 while searching; also appears when I copy-paste citations from elsewhere into the Zotero Word plugin search.

    For DOI, this would match features with other tools (e.g., PaperPile, RStudio), but I think that would probably only make sense if Zotero would Add by Identifier the DOI if it wasn’t available. That’s what those tools do. That would personally be useful for me for adding citations where a co-author gave me the DOI/full reference as a comment.
  • I've created tickets to track these issues. Not happening immediately, but we will be doing some work on the citation dialog soon, so we hope to add this in a not-too-distant future.

    https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1864
    https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1865
  • @bwiernik, you well explained the use case of these features.

    For me, it could be also useful while doing faster (re-)inserting Zotero-like citations in documents/manuscripts that used manually inserted citations (i.e. by simple text by other co-authors, that don't use Zotero/Mendelay); or (old) document's links to Zotero were removed and now I want to associated with Zotero citations again.

    @adomasven, thank you for opening tickets.
  • The further step (after implementing search by DOI in local Zotero database), could be expanded feature: if item is not in local database, then option to look-up in https://www.doi.org/ and add new item into local Zotero database, i.e. do similar thing as Zotero standalone does, however from MS Word / LibreOffice dialog.
  • Yes, bwiernik suggested that above. I don't know exactly how the other tools handle it, but it seems a bit awkward to me, for a number of reasons:

    1) It means that the dialog would need to work in two distinct ways: as a find-as-you-type search that doesn't require you to press Return, and as a network-based search that only triggers when you press Return. And while both title/creator/year and DOI would work for the former, only a DOI would work for the latter, unless we greatly extend Zotero's ability to add items directly via search. That all seems a bit conceptually muddled.

    2) It would make it easier to create duplicates. E.g., if you paste a DOI for an item you already have that doesn't happen to have the DOI entered, you'd create a duplicate without seeing the existing item, as you likely would if you used Add Item by Identifier.

    3) It can't just save — you would have to be able to choose a library and possibly collection to save to, which means reproducing something akin to the connector's save popup. To complicate matters, we'll likely be merging some form of collection/item browsing from the classic citation dialog into the main one, but it's not totally clear how that would interact with this, or what would happen when that was closed.

    So while I understand the use case, I do think it risks making things more confusing. But we'll experiment.
  • 1) I would be happy if search by DOI would look only in local database and only by full DOI match (not by part of DOI) – unlike names/titles (where Zotero do search by part of string too).

    I understand, that search in online doi.org website would be more complicated. Though – why not to try investigate in future?

    2) Yes, duplicates could be created... if we implement search in online doi.org.

    3) Current Web-browser plugins and Zotero Standalone just saves new items into active directory. This logic could remain for Word Processor integration plugin too. Or it can save at top of library.
  • Current Web-browser plugins and Zotero Standalone just saves new items into active directory. This logic could remain for Word Processor integration plugin too.
    In the Zotero Connector, you can expand the save popup to choose a different library or collection. In Zotero itself, you're already looking at the collections list. The word processor plugins couldn't just save to the wherever you happen to be in the Zotero app, behind your other windows, without providing a way to change the destination.
  • I would still be happy, even without search online + saving into Zotero database functionality.

    Another alternative, even if we do search online:
    put new metadata only in DOCX/ODT document inside, without creating new item in local Zotero Standalone.
  • Another very similar to "et al" suggestion:
    now Zotero ignores "and" (e.g. if we search "Author1 and Author2 2020"), but only English "and"; it would be nice, if Zotero could ignore localised/translated "and".
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