Quick search by item type

rh01
I'm new here, so sorry if I'm not asking in the right place...

Question:
quick search doesn't seem to work well with item types: if I search for 'Book' not all of the books in my library show up. Is it because item type is not a regular field?
It would be really nice to have an option to filter the whole library by item type without doing an advanced search (which results in a separate window with less information). yes I can save the search, but this seems to be too much hassle for a quick search I have in mind.

Thanks for any kind of information I might be missing...
  • adamsmith
    You can add "Type" as a column in the middle panel and sort by it. You can get to a specific type by typing the first 1-2 letters of it (so "jo" for journal article)
  • rh01
    ok, thanks - I was hoping, though, that I could also filter instead of just sorting (so I can successively drill down). I know that is possible with advanced search, but it seems in the result window only title and creator is displayed, so less intuitive to narrow down the search...
  • dstillman
    You can save the advanced search as a saved search and interact with it in the main window.
  • rh01
    yes, but that's a bit too much hassle if you just want to quickly scan your files... It's not a big deal, but was wondering why the quick search is possible with all fields BUT item type - which for me is one of the first filters to apply. Is it a technical issue?
  • dstillman
    I just don't think many people think to do this. You're the first person I can recall ever asking for it.

    It'd be slightly trickier than other fields on a technical level — it's not really the same sort of editable metadata, and it would have to match on localized type names — but it would be doable if there was demand for it.
  • rh01
    ok, thanks for the info! I appreciate the responsiveness of this forum, and generally like Zotero a lot - I just wished I had switched earlier, before having accumulated thousands of references.. ;)

    For this issue, I'll simply duplicate now the item type information as tags, which helps to achieve my goal - although it's a bit less elegant (in a perfect world, all columns would have a filter like in Excel...).

    What would be nice, though, is a more sophisticated tag editor, and - more importantly - the possibility to do batch editing. Again I found a work around with Java Script, but would be really nice (and less error prone) if this could be done directly in Zotero. I can imaging there might be more votes for this feature...
  • Fozzle
    Taking in mind the mention for demand. I will willingly throw my hat in the ring for a means of filtering by item type.

    However, I have started adding in tags of "items types" so that I can filter, but I have to back-date this throughout my library which is going to take me a few years at this rate. But it is a possible workaround rh01. Maybe the developers could add "item types" to automatic tags? That would be helpful and a lot less work?
  • thomasgutjahr
    +1 for column filtering: once you get used to it, you miss it when its not available. Saving an advanced search and editing it is a relatively time-consuming workaround. Also, adding tags for document type is another workaround, but requires the added effort to each time enter the tag manually.
  • ole77
    +1 to sort by Item Type. Was hoping to look at all the conference papers in a large folder of mixed types (journal articles, bills, snapshots) and can't seem to do this easily. Not sure if I am missing something, seems to be the same issue named here.
  • adamsmith
    You can sort by item type (add the item type column, then sort) as I say above. The request here is for filtering, i.e. only showing items with one item type
  • ole77
    Oh my yes, there it is. I will tell you I kept digging in the "more columns" sub menu and completely overlooked that it is front and center on the first menu.
    Thanks for your reply. Sorted!
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