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
  • edited September 10, 2020
    You're using Quick Copy. All that does is copy one-off citations or references to the clipboard with no link to Zotero. Zotero has no way of knowing what you're using them for, where you're pasting them, whether they're going in the same document, etc. They will be the same every time.

    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.
  • Ok, thankyou for the quick reply.

    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?
  • We have no control over that — Scrivener doesn't have a plugin API, and they've made it extremely clear in their forums, going back almost 15 years, that they have no intention of adding one to allow for proper Zotero integration. You can search their forums to see those threads.

    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.
  • The picker can even be combined with that - the picker can output scannable cite.
  • Scrivener says it is a Zotero issue. See this thread
    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?
  • edited January 16, 2021
    Scrivener says it is a Zotero issue
    The statements in that thread are either disingenuous or confused (including regarding Zotero development, which has been done by full-time professional developers working on it every day for the last 15 years, and some supposed "crisis" around the v4-to-v5 upgrade, which all major Zotero plugins were quickly updated for).

    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.
  • Thank you for your response.

    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.
  • edited January 17, 2021
    If you need any other information to help you understand let me know and I will do my best to help.
  • This may just be a language issue, but your phrasing comes across as accusative, and that makes it less pleasant to work on an answer for you.

    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.
  • Thank you for your response. Sorry if my phrasing came across as negative.

    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. _/\_
  • https://github.com/davepwsmith/zotpick-applescript may get you started. I build the backend for this (bbt), others have written the applescript glue. On that repo you can likely get help to get it running.

    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".
  • I don't speak for zotero in any capacity btw. I'm an independent plugin dev. The zotero devs may well think differently about the matter, this is my personal take.
  • The zotero devs may well think differently about the matter
    Nope.
    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.
    Wait, so if I'm understanding this, there's not even any actual integration here. Scrivener just lets you assign an app to focus with Cmd-Y, and in Bookends you can similarly set Cmd-Y to copy a temporary citation for the selected item into an application of your choosing and paste the text into it. But Cmd-Y is just a made-up convention for both apps — there's no actual connection between those two keystrokes.

    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.)
  • Yes you understood it correctly. May I humbly suggest that you download a free for 30 day copy of both Scrivener and Bookends for macOS and try it. It is totally simple. No muss no fuss. You just go in the preferences in each program and select each other. And you are now done. You do not have to download another app like Bibtex or do anything else. Just Scrivener and Bookends. Of course this is only a macOS solution. But really to see what I mean download the two programs and try it yourself.
  • edited January 18, 2021
    There's nothing we need to try — we get it. What I'm explaining is that there's no actual integration there at all, and you can already get a better — and vastly more flexible — experience from the Zotero ecosystem with a little bit of setup. If you need help setting something up, start a new thread and explain where you're having trouble.
  • Thank you for that. But at this point I am happy with Bookends and would need to have some real incentive to change horses so to speak.

    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?
  • edited January 18, 2021
    I'm not talking about Bookends in general. I'm talking about the very basic double-Cmd-Y convention that Scrivener and Bookends decided on, compared to the range of options you have in the Zotero ecosystem for integrating Zotero with any editor. Even at the level of choosing a citation, as I said above:
    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
    But since Zotero is vastly more flexible, the specifics of how you can set it up vary greatly, so if you're interested in using Zotero, you'd have to start a new thread and explain your workflow. Depending on your citation needs, the solution may be literally as simple as using Quick Copy via Cmd-Shift-A, as the person who started this thread was doing.

    (And if you're not interested in using Zotero, I'm not sure why you're posting in the Zotero Forums to begin with…)
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