zot 6.0.8 annotation changes.

When creating annotations, one is created per highlight. That's fine. However the new annotation remains 'closed' instead of it being open for adding user text (Add Comment) nor can you just add to the text by pasting from the PDF what was copied into the annotation by zot.

Instead, it would be more usable if a newly created annotation was created in an 'open' condition where you could immediately add a note, or continue adding to the zot copied text by pasting additional text.

As it is now, you must click on the new annotation and then double click on it to completely open it for editing.

Said another way, it should be under user control to 'close' the new annotation for editing. For example, if I wanted to copy and paste text into the new annotation, I must reopen the annotation for editing in order to paste additional text from the PDF. This saves me from having many annotations (every point of interest/highlight) to a few strategic ones (one annotation with many small pastes from the PDF). It is a pain to have to repeatedly reopen the annotations for editing every time I want to add to it.

The behavior of closing the old and creating a new annotation when a new highlight occurs is fine, but I would like to easily add my own comments and textual pasting without having to reopen the newly created annotation repeatedly.
  • As it is now, you must click on the new annotation and then double click on it to completely open it for editing.
    No, that's incorrect. You just need to click once on the highlight itself — i.e., in the PDF view — to focus the comment box. That's the case whether or not the sidebar is open.
  • Yes, what you stated is correct, but not exactly what I'm attempting to explain.

    1) when the annotation is created, is should be created open and ready for editing. No click should be required. That is, it should be as though you had already clicked on the ellipse menu and chose 'edit highlighted text.'

    More often than not I like to copy/paste other sections of the PDF to accompany the highlighted text. Thereby having related text all in one annotation instead of many.

    2) The new annotation should remain in edit mode until a new annotation is created.

    Repeatedly clicking the annotation to get it back into edit mode is a pain.

    3) I see the usefulness of the 'Add Comment' feature, but it is not comments I'm adding. As I read forward in the PDF, if there is related text to an annotation topic then I want to add the PDF text to the annotation.

    Typically, I have an annotation per group of paragraphs where the author is making a particular point. I don't want 5 or six annotations (per highlight) on a particular point in the PDF. I should be able to simply copy and paste into a single annotation (which stays open in edit mode) so have have all relevant information in one place. Then, by god, if I could tag it, using tags from the main zot library, THEN I would have all the info and one place (per point made by the author), and I would be able to find it via zot tags.

    4) As you scroll through the annotations panel, the default action when you click on it should be to open it for editing, and activate the 'Add comment' box. As it is now, the default action is to turn it blue, then you have to either double click it or use the ellipse menu.

    5) I may be mistaken, but I believe I've read somewhere that the annotation tags are not integrated with zot tags in the main library. Is this true? If so, then the expectation is for users to maintain tags in two locations?

  • 1) when the annotation is created, is should be created open and ready for editing. No click should be required. That is, it should be as though you had already clicked on the ellipse menu and chose 'edit highlighted text.'
    Oh, you mean editing the highlighted text? No, we'd never do that. That's a rarely used feature that only exists for when there's a problem with the PDF's embedded text layer.

    The whole point of highlight annotations — in Zotero and other PDF tools — is that they map to specific lines of text at specific positions in the PDF. Those can then be inserted as individual pieces of quoted text, with citations/links back to the page, within notes, and later inserted into word processor documents. All of that breaks down if you're copying other text into the highlighted-text field.
    5) I may be mistaken, but I believe I've read somewhere that the annotation tags are not integrated with zot tags in the main library. Is this true?
    They're regular tags, but they're not yet searchable or viewable in the rest of the app. They will be in a future version. For now they allow you filter annotations in the sidebar.
  • Very good point. I will avoid doing what I outlined.

    So then, the 'Add comment' feature IS NOT part of the citation, I assume, then that is where I might try to put additional text of my own and also paste other parts of the PDF which help support what the citation/highlight is mentioning.

    Correct?
  • edited June 6, 2022
    Additional text of your own, certainly — that's what it's for. You could paste other text from the PDF into the comment field, but then those lines aren't linked back, aren't quoted automatically, don't get the benefit of an automatic citation, and can't be viewed easily in the sidebar or in the library view (once available there). Zotero has a bunch of features intended to ensure that everything you quote is properly attributed.

    Generally, the expectation is that you'll just highlight interesting/relevant text as you read through the PDF, add comments for specific annotations, and then start to combine multiple annotations together in a note in the notes pane on the right, perhaps after filtering by color, tag, or keyword.

    Note that you can drag both annotations and selected text, if you really don't want to bother creating highlight annotations — you'll still get quotes, citations, and links back if you drag selected text directly to a note.
  • Thx for the comment. As you described, I think working within notes is more to my style of reading/noting.

    Is there a video on how to use all the new features?

    Yea, I could read the manual. But my wife who is a technical writer has an acronym she uses all the time RTFM, because nobody does, Read The F.... Manual.
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