When I double click an entry with multiple PDF attachment, how does Zotero decide which one to open?
Suppose I have an entry with multiple PDF attachments. When double click on it (on the parent entry containing all the attachments), how does Zotero decide which of the attachments to open? Can I influence this decision?
oldest PDF attachment matching parent URL,
oldest non-PDF file attachment matching parent URL,
oldest PDF attachment not matching URL,
oldest non-PDF file attachment not matching URL,
live URL,
resolved DOI.
Post from 2012: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/131213/#Comment_131213
Edit: but in 2013, @dstillman indicated a slightly different order : PDF matching URL, PDF not matching URL, non-PDF matching URL, non-PDF not matching URL, see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/156584/#Comment_156584
The issue I have in mind, is that I added supplementary materials PDF before main text, and now whenever I double click, it opens suppl. materials instead of main text.
+1 for more customizability here.
Pre-prints, sometimes also comments, reply and corrections go into main element: it would be also useful having a "discussion" field keeping track of these elements, like the notes or attachment counter fields (though creating a note for each of these works well too)
Thank you!!!
+1 for changing default to open latest item
Our typical example: preprint is first added, then published article is added and items are merged. Both files are stored as attachment, but quite obviously, it is the published version that Zotero should open by default, not the preprint.
+1 for customisation
If it opens the latest attached item, you can at least manually customise this by removing and reattaching the file you want it to open. But in most cases, I imagine the latest attachment would be correct.
I'm currently removing and then reattaching multiple files to get the correct file to open. But if the correct file is an image (or any non-PDF) attaching any PDF takes priority.
If Zotero picked the latest pdf as default, it would pick manually added/supplemental files, and that's usually not a good idea. The main PDF Zotero downloads when the item is created is almost always the appropriate, official pdf file of an article in any field (unless that pdf is behind a paywall for you).
On the point above about preprints: Preprints and journal articles are different item types, and they regularly have different bibliographic data (the titles and abstracts often change during review, new authors get added, etc. in my field.) Those items can't even be merged without modifying the item type of one or the other item.
And sorry I should have been more careful with my +1s:
+1 for **allowing the user to change** the default to open latest item (including image files not just PDFs)
+1 for customisation
Customization of the default attachment would indeed be nice, but the devs may have worries about implementation we are unaware of.