CMD+Shift+A always generates same output
Hello, I'm new to Zotero and I encounter a strange behavior while using it. I searched in the forums but I only found quite old entries regarding the same topic that seem to be already fixed. But my problem still persists.
I added four webpages to Zotero using the Chrome plugin. They are correctly added. The pages are from the same author and year but have different titles. While writing my book in Scrivener I try to insert the references on several different positions. For this I use the shortcut CMD+Shift+A and paste them to Scrivener using CMD+V. But unfortunately I always get the exactly same output "(Frobeen, 2020)" using the American Psychological Association 7th edition citation stile. I checked different stiles but have the same problem. No indices are added to differentiate the entries, e.g. (Frobeen, 2020a)... (Frobeen, 2020b). Am I doing something wrong?
General question: Are these indices stored in the database? What will happen if I paste them to a document and later on add further references to Zotero from the same author and year? Will they get incremented indices, e.g. (Frobeen, 2020c)? Can I rely on the indices and that they will not be altered by inserting new references? Or are they calculated and updated every time I add new references to Zotero? This would break my link to them in external documents.
My setup:
- Zotero 5.0.90
I added four webpages to Zotero using the Chrome plugin. They are correctly added. The pages are from the same author and year but have different titles. While writing my book in Scrivener I try to insert the references on several different positions. For this I use the shortcut CMD+Shift+A and paste them to Scrivener using CMD+V. But unfortunately I always get the exactly same output "(Frobeen, 2020)" using the American Psychological Association 7th edition citation stile. I checked different stiles but have the same problem. No indices are added to differentiate the entries, e.g. (Frobeen, 2020a)... (Frobeen, 2020b). Am I doing something wrong?
General question: Are these indices stored in the database? What will happen if I paste them to a document and later on add further references to Zotero from the same author and year? Will they get incremented indices, e.g. (Frobeen, 2020c)? Can I rely on the indices and that they will not be altered by inserting new references? Or are they calculated and updated every time I add new references to Zotero? This would break my link to them in external documents.
My setup:
- Zotero 5.0.90
The sort of advanced, context-dependent functionality you're looking for is available in the Zotero word processor plugins for Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs.
If you want this sort of thing in Scrivener, you'd need to use the Better BibTeX plugin and post-process the document using pandoc. See these instructions for some details on possible workflows.
As Scrivener is a very professional application for writing books it would be very helpful to have a Scrivener integration as well for the scientific users.
Is it planned to provide such a functionality?
But as noted in the instructions I linked to, there are ways to achieve some degree of integration, even including use of the actual Zotero citation picker. For a somewhat less technical option that doesn't require BibTeX and pandoc, there's the ODF-Scan plugin, which can be used with any text editor. Finally, there's the RTF Scan feature built into Zotero, which is basic but might be enough depending on your needs.
https://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=34766
I wanted to use Zotero with Scrivener but Zotero would not work no matter what I tried to do. But following the advice on that thread I tried BookEnds and it worked seemlessly with Scrivener by simply using "cmd+Y" and presto the citation is in Scrivener. So how come BookEnds works but Zotero doesn't? How are they are able to get it work without a plug API?
Zotero is open source and extremely extensible, as evidenced by the dozens of plugins available for it. Scrivener is closed source and not extensible. If Scrivener had a plugin API like Zotero, someone could create a plugin for Zotero integration. But they don't. Someone — quite possibly us — would've created a plugin many years ago if it were possible. I have no idea why people in that thread are trying to make it sound like lack of integration is somehow Zotero's fault.
I don't know what the Bookends integration does — it sounds like it just brings Bookends to the front and then pastes in a temporary citation, possibly using a Mac-specific mechanism, and I'm not aware of any documentation from Scrivener on that. But there are already various ways to do something similar with Zotero, using RTF Scan, ODF Scan, or Better BibTeX, as explained above, and many people are happily using Zotero and Scrivener with those tools.
I am not a developer but an end user so I do not know all the technical details involved.
However, I will describe to you the workflow. In Scrivener "preferences>citations" you choose what software you want to use for citations. Then when you are writing and you want to make a citation then you do "cmd Y". That automatically opens the citation software. You then navigate to the item you want to cite and then do another "cmd Y" and the citation gets entered into Scrivener at the place you previously indicated depending on whether you chose inline citation or footnote. Then at the end when you are done in Scrivener you compile your Scrivener doc to RTF and then in your word processor you "Scan" the document with the macro installed by the citation software which then converts their code into the type of citation style you want and include a bibliography if you want. That is the general workflow.
So if I select Zotero as my citation manager in Scrivener this is what happens. I do "cmd Y" and Zotero opens up. I select the document I want to cite do "cmd Y" and nothing happens.
But if I select BookEnds as my citation manager in Scrivener this is what happens. I do "cmd Y" and Bookends opens up. I select the document I want to cite do "cmd Y" and the citation is entered into Scrivener.
So from an end users viewpoint this is definitely a Zotero issue. Scrivener opened up Zotero but Zotero was not able to recognize the "cmd Y" instruction and enter the citation. Whereas Bookends could understand that instruction and do the needful.
You can download both Scrivener and Bookends and use them both free for 30 days and do the experiment I just outlined to see that what I am saying is true.
So why is another 3rd party software "Bookends" able to do (integrate with Scrivener) what Zotero can not?
How is this a Scrivener issue if Bookends can do it but you can not?
In BookEnds preferences their is a choice for which word processor you want to use. Zotero has no such preference.
So my guess is that since these are both in macOS that they use an Apple Script to communicate between the two.
But while Scrivener is able to communicate to Zotero, Zotero doesn't link back to Scrivener because Zotero doesn't have a preference for Scrivener.
I hope this is helpful to you so that you can better understand the situation.
It is a scrivener issue because they force on other software that it should interpret cmd-y as "attempt to give the previous app the input focus and paste blindly into it" or "attempt to give scrivener the input focus and paste blindly into it", both of which are ugly and brittle kludges. Imagine that Zotero demanded the same of word, Libre office, etc. Instead, both zotero and word and Libre office have officially supported extension points that make it possible to build a robust connection. But because scrivener says "we don't care about people connecting to us, here's a horrible kludge you can use, bye", only kludges can be built, and when such a kludge inevitably fails somewhere for a cross-platform app like zotero, zotero is left holding the bag for support on this.
It is likely possible to recreate kludge with a combo of bbt and an Automator script. bbt could offer the item picker, and Automator would bind them, raise scrivener, and blindly paste.
Whether it is a kludge or not doesn't matter to the end user because they don't see what is happening on the back end.
I had tried Zotero several years ago but could not get it to work with Scrivener so I solved my problem using Bookends. I just wanted it to work.
I downloaded Zotero again because it was recommended as a replacement for EverNote which I am migrating from, so wanted to try it out again with Scrivener and found this discussion.
My apologies again for any offense committed. _/\_
Whether it is a kludge absolutely does affect users the moment it breaks down, and because of the way scrivener has declared itself no party in this, if zotero offers it, any breakage will have people complaining about zotero, not scrivener.
I know I'm defensive/combative on this. This is 100% not your fault. But I've grown a little annoyed at L&L just shrugging off integration as "I'll just launch a program of your choice and the rest is not our problem".
Someone could easily make a Zotero plugin that made Cmd-Y do the same thing, but zotpick-applescript already seems like an improvement on this workflow in every way, since it will automatically bring up the actual Zotero citation dialog (with options for page numbers, multiple citations, etc.) and let you just press Return to insert the temporary citation into your document.
The only downside is the setup, since you need to install the Better BibTeX plugin and save one of the AppleScripts as an application, but that's a one-time thing.
(@emilianoeheyns, we can discuss this separately, but I'd be open to Zotero integrating more of the non-BibTeX parts of this (e.g., the ability to bring up a citation picker and get the output in various formats). There's no real reason someone should have to install something called "Better BibTeX" if they're not using BibTeX.)
One question, unless you have tried Bookends and know its capabilities how do you know I would have a much better experience with Zotero? What can Zotero do that Bookends can not? That is a question any user would ask, especially if there is higher setup overhead.
Do you have any feature comparison charts that I could look at?
(And if you're not interested in using Zotero, I'm not sure why you're posting in the Zotero Forums to begin with…)