Check if references is already in library before saving it?
Hello, I wonder if it's possible to check from firefox if the reference is already in the library without saving it and then checking duplicates. It should be an easy operation but I don't see any option to do that. Do I really have to add it and then check if it's a duplicate? It sounds silly.
(There is a plugin that enables such a pre-flight check when trying to save items, but it is not maintained by its author and will stop working when Zotero 5 releases later this year.)
This is actually a very challenging technical problem. Complete support for pre-saving duplicate checking would require Zotero to essentially run its save function on every item on every page you load in your browser. This would have a terrible impact on performance and speed. Support for a more limited check that should cover most cases without seriously impacting performance (checking for identical DOI or URL) is planned, but no estimate for when it will arrive.
1 User clicks save button
2 Zotero checks if title/authors/etc combination is in library without saving.
if not present save
else prompt user for cancel save operation or continue.
The function that reads the tile/author from the webpage extracts only that information and uses it with a lookup function to check if duplicate exists in library. Why do you have to save all information before being able to do that?
The relevant ticket for the DOI/URL check bwiernik describes is here: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1007
The "Prevent Duplicates" add-on that he mentions (which does what you want but for Firefox only) is here: https://github.com/adam3smith/zotero-prevent-duplicates/
Contributions to both welcome.
If I highlight or comment on a PDf and merge the wrong one (how am I supposed to know which version I commented on 2 years ago???), I could lose my notes, often very important notes. I already lost some in the middle of writing a grant.
It also takes time and has issues if the files are not the same format. With F1000/Sciwheel, I could save to references and it if was already saved it would ignore my new save and the PDF I uploaded before would be the only version. this is also the case if there is no PDF. I wonder why this is not the case for Zotero? Do all other reference managers besides F1000 do this or only Zotero???
Just wanted to show my support for this feature (and bump it up)
https://chenglongma.com/zoplicate/