Accessing local client API from external script

ferdinandyb · July 3, 2022

I'm looking into the possibility of a vim plugin for zotero. The idea is not fully baked yet, but the first step would probably be something like listing entries in collections, possibly adding and removing entries from collections. Since I might want to also write data, I'm looking at the local client API: https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/client_coding/javascript_api#running_ad_hoc_javascript_in_zotero. It has pretty nice examples for using the built in javascript interpreter, but what is very not clear to me is how would I access this API from _outside_ zotero?

I hope someone can point me in the right directio

adamsmith · July 3, 2022

You can't natively. Generally, mozrepl is an option, bu not sure about the status of that and it's a significant dependency, obviously.

I seem to recall someone posting about implementing a local API that's roughly compatible with the web API, but I can't find that currently and it's not yet listed on the plugin page, but you might be successful finding that either here and/or on the zotero-dev google group.

dstillman · July 3, 2022

a local API that's roughly compatible with the web API

Yes, this is the plan. See this thread. I haven't yet responded, but the zotero-dev thread is here.

dstillman · July 3, 2022

(And in the meantime, I think you would use the debug-bridge component that's part of Better BibTeX, not mozrepl, which I doubt has been an option since the switch to a standalone app.)

ferdinandyb · July 4, 2022

Thanks for the info! I subscribed to the dev thread. As it seems there's interest in this and I'm not in a rush so I'll hold out until this is rolled out.