Upgrade Storagegroups and item notes
As I'm putting together the syllabus for a seminar I'm teaching (starting next week!) using Zotero groups, I'm finding a really awkward wrinkle: interaction between item notes and groups. I can find no way to add a note to an item and share it via the group (note: base on what I see in the web interface).The only way I can find to share a note is if it's a standalone note. I find this all really awkward and limiting.
I do realize this is a bit tricky though, and it suggests to me need for finer-grained permissions. For example, I don't share notes globally. But this group is private. So I need to be able to distinguish notes that get shared in groups, vs. those that are private, vs. those that are public. And the UI needs to make this all clear.
So, am I missing something? If not, is there a plan to address this soon?
I do realize this is a bit tricky though, and it suggests to me need for finer-grained permissions. For example, I don't share notes globally. But this group is private. So I need to be able to distinguish notes that get shared in groups, vs. those that are private, vs. those that are public. And the UI needs to make this all clear.
So, am I missing something? If not, is there a plan to address this soon?
In the group library: select an item, right-click & select "add attachment."
(EDIT: remove link to a group note, which had been for testing only)
Am not sure whether the UI should be a checkbox or pop-up on the note, a contextual menu item, or both.
Am also not sure if the option should just be a boolean share/no share, or a more complex option to allow users to choose which groups to share with, but my impulse is towards the first.
As for copying child items after that: A checkbox is better suited for the permissions model. For the copy model, something like an "Add to Library" or "Copy To" option in the context menu of an item, using the cross-library link of the parent item, might work. It'd give you a warning with an option to overwrite if the child item already existed. It'd only give groups as options if the parent item had already been copied there (though you should be able to copy the parent across via the context menu too).
Other ideas welcome.
Different groups have different uses and likely require different permissions, but if you had the same instance of an item (say, a note) in multiple groups, the permissions of the least restrictive would essentially allow members of that group to make changes in all your other groups. If you don't want that, you're stuck making item-level permissions changes (group-specific? global?) that are very difficult to convey and control in a UI. With the copy model you can set permissions on the group and do a controlled merge in one direction or another as you see fit (or just delete it when you're done without it affecting the rest of your library). You can work anywhere, including in your personal library, without worrying whether or not you're exposing data you didn't mean to expose or whether an item you delete from one place will be deleted from other places it exists (as you might expect if other changes apply automatically).
1) I want to be able to;
-Make notes on a my local copy;
-sync some of the notes out to the group;
-pull in other peoples notes;
I wonder if the right way to do this is some sort of reconciliation model; each person has their own copy in a local library and in the remote library. If there are differences between the local and the remote version, you are prompted to look at the differences and decide what you want to accept or reject the remote version differences in your local copy. This could build off of citation reconciliation software that is already being developed (as I understand) for reconciling citations locally. The ability to revise the repository copy can be set globally; various permission levels could be edit all, and add notes only, and read only.
Notes and files could be identified as either a local note or a global note; global notes are put into the repository for reconciling, local notes are never put in.
Right now, I have the same files in both my local Zotero data base and in a the groups database, and it's a massive pain, because I don't want to do everything twice! That's what computers are for!
2) Could you post a "development roadmap" for groups, to see what is being planned in the future? For example, search functionality within group repositories would be very good on the webpage (I'm pretty sure people are thinking about this already from other posts).
Thanks
I wonder if a "link" approach would not be more appropriate, in which a group library is merely a collection of links to items or collections in private libraries, and per-item or per-collection permissions. Right-clicking a item or collection in a private library would show a "share..." option. The window that is opened this way, would allow to share or unshare the item/collection to subscribed groups, each with its own options (read/write permissions for the items, notes and attachments,...). If (and only if) a group member has the appropriate permissions, he is able to alter the data in the group item, which is in fact directly linked to the owner's (online version of the) private library item. An extra safety can be foreseen here: when syncing the owner could be asked if he accepts the changes. If a group member adds a note or attachment of his own to an item he doesn't own, zotero should silently make a copy of the group item into the private library, and some parental heritage field could be kept in order to group both versions in the group library.
Much of the efforts of building and maintaining group libraries is thus concentrated at the zotero.org servers. Treating group libraries this way, however, would render them only usable online. To be able to use them offline and search them with the zotero program, a local copy of the library is still nescessary, containing all metadata and notes. Only when syncing with zotero.org, the latter should automatically scatter and gather together the data to/from the private libraries.
In a distant future I would very much like to contribute to zotero, especially on collaboration ideas like this. For now lack of time and javascript knowledge keep me calm. I hope, however, you appreciate my ideas-without-code as much as I appreciate zotero.
Might be worth doing some usability testing on this if you can manage somehow.
In 2.0b7, dragging items between libraries will copy child notes, snapshots/files, and links based on checkboxes for each (enabled by default) in the Zotero preferences. This will address the initial copy. After that will come mechanisms for copying additional child items after the initial copy and merging changes in various directions.