Notepad Suggestions

Hello,



I've been using Zotero pretty extensively to take notes on articles that I'm reading. I don't know how the notepad feature in Zotero works (i.e., if it's based off an external program, something built into Firefox, written by the dev team, etc.), but insofar as it's possible to tweak it, here're a few suggestions:

  1. Insert <br /> tags, instead of <p> tags for page returns. This would make it easier to format notes in a desired manner (you can always press Enter twice to make a double page break--as it is right now, you can't make a single page break).


  2. This might be pretty difficult, but it would be fantastic (and make typing notes much quicker) if you could emulate Microsoft OneNote's functionality with creating lists. So, if I have a bulleted list:

    • Item 1

    • Item 2

    If I put my cursor in from of "Item 2" and press the tab key, it makes it a nested list.

    • Item 1

      • Item 2

    Then, subsequently, if I put my cursor in front of "Item 2" and press the backspace key, it puts it back on the original level.

    • Item 1

    • Item 2

    Or, to create a list, make a new line and type "1. Whatever" or "* Whatever", and a numeric or bulleted list will automatically be created.




    Then if I have

    • Item 1
      • Item 2

    And I put my cursor in front of "Item 2" and type "1. [[Space Bar]]" it will create:

    • Item 1
      1. Item 2




Just a few thoughts.
  • hey nate -
    Zotero uses TinyMCE - so that's not going to change - though maybe you can request it on their site?
    http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/index.php

    but at least your second feature might be possible -
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/8784/howto-enable-additional-tinymce-note-editor-functionality/
    TinyMCE already has some functions that the Zotero dev team took out to keep things manageable.

    The thread tells you how to integrate additional tinymce features into Zotero (if you're feeling a little code-adventurous).
  • On your #1 point, I couldn't disagree more strongly.
  • as it is right now, you can't make a single page break
    Shift-Enter.

    This isn't generally what you want to do, though. These aren't "single" and "double" "page breaks"—they're line breaks and paragraph breaks. If it's a new paragraph, you should use the latter. If you'd prefer less spacing between paragraphs, you can customize the CSS used to display the notes by adding CSS rules to the extensions.zotero.note.css value in about:config. By default, Zotero follows standard HTML formatting.
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