Please bring back Safari connector to (non-beta) Zotero

Hello.

I've been closely following the issues caused by the new Apple policies for Safari 13+ to the Zotero Connector (that you detail here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/safari_compatibility)

The gist of it is this:

We invested significant resources building a Safari App Extension version of the Zotero Connector, but due to what we believe to be a bug in macOS, Zotero app updates can cause the extension to become permanently disabled in Safari, requiring the Zotero app to be deleted from Applications and reinstalled. While the extension is fully usable, because of this bug the new extension will remain available only as part of the Zotero beta.


I understand that you want smooth experience in the production Zotero; but after a year of being forced to use Zotero Beta and no end in sight, I think you decision to keep the Zotero plugin only in the Beta branch is untenable and counter-productive to overal user-experience with Zotero being smooth. This is because your Safari users "have to" install the beta version; which comes with many incremental updates; and possibly stability issues.

I do not want to be constantly updating my Zotero installation and try out beta updates. If that means that I have to deal with installing and re-installing Zotero every so often, so be it. Please give the user a choice.

Best,
M.



  • edited June 3, 2021
    You have a choice: you can simply have the beta app installed in Applications but continue to use the production version. You don't need to use the beta on a daily basis. This will also avoid the reinstallation problem except for during intentional updates.

    Having the extension disappear and potentially starting causing high CPU usage after every app update is a beta-quality experience, and we're not going to offer it in the production release.
  • I've used the Zotero beta for several years. It is as or more stable than many release versions of other software I use.
  • Yes, we do try to keep it pretty stable, but the beta is updated fairly frequently at times, so I can understand not wanting to use it, particularly when it triggers this Safari bug that requires redownloading the app.
  • @ dstillman thanks for your response. I think the idea of having both zotero beta and zotero production misses the point: in order for safari clipper to work, one needs to keep the zotero beta running in the background; which means it will keep updating in the background. Not to mention I am not sure how two versions of zotero would manage to co-exist. Could that not possibly create issues for the SQLite database?
  • You don't need the beta running. You just need it installed.
  • I'm wondering why you cannot release the connector as a separate (beta) application? Is this a sandboxing issue?
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