Many journals allow authors to post supplementary information. It would be really nice if Zotero would automatically download this along with the main paper.
For instance, this:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v482/n7384/full/nature10840.html#/supplementary-information
Science and Nature are the two journals I've encountered that use this most.
I can have a look. This needs to be coded separately for each site (i.e. once for Nature, once for Science, once for sciencedirect etc.) so any site you want this from we need a separate example.
1) A more general but not automatic solution might be to do something like "Down them all". For example, the user could automatically download the citation info into the zotero database. Then user could go to the webpage with the supplementary info, right click on the reference in the zotero database and select a "download supp info" menu item. This would bring up a window with the various links in the page and the user could select which of these to download and associate with that particular reference. Although it isn't automatic, it wouldn't take that long. In addition, sometimes there are supplementary videos which are very big and most users probably wouldn't want these downloaded automatically (although downloading a link might be nice)
2) As a longer term solution, the fact that you would need to write a custom interpreter for every journal is a problem. A standardized vocabulary (e.g. xml variant) for types of information associated with a paper seems like it would be a huge boon for reference programs which are probably becoming one of the main ways users interact with journals. Perhaps the people at zotero could get together with other reference managers and work with journals to make an open universal standard. Easier said than done, I imagine, but it's hard to imagine what a better general solution could be.
First of all, thanks for this great feature, it really is extremely useful.
Unfortunately I don't have any of the translator hidden preferences in my about.config, either in Firefox or Standalone (i.e. a search for "extensions.zotero.translators." returns nothing). Any advice? I already tried manually updating my translators.
For the time being you will have to manually add these preferences. Right-click in the about:config dialog, select New -> Boolean, then type in (you'll probably want to copy-paste) the full name of the preferences.
For convenience, the two preferences controlling supplementary attachment behavior are: extensions.zotero.translators.attachSupplementary extensions.zotero.translators.supplementaryAsLink
It would be useful if there was a way to make Zotero go back to the origin of all supported files and download the supplementary data if it doesn't already have a copy.
It would be really great if this could work in Chrome. I love zotero and the chrome plug in, but the supplementary info download thing would be an awesome feature to have. Any chance of this coming to chrome?
Is it possible to save supplementary data for Science journal?
I set the "translators.attachSupplementary" preference to "true" in Zotero v5.0.66, however, it is still not saving supplementary data for Science journals.
I tried using Zotero Connector for both Firefox and Chrome. Neither of them have the preference "translators.attachSupplementary".
I'm wondering if this feature is working, I have change my settings a couple of years ago but Zotero never downloads any supplementary material. I have tried with many journals listed as supported, I've just tried with this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416516301891#m0005.
FWIW, the only journals/sites this has ever worked on are HighWire 2.0
Nature Publishing Group
ScienceDirect
Cell Press
ACS Publications
We're happy to take reports on it not working for any of those or requests for others, but I don't think it's a huge priority to expand this functionality.
I use to do training in our Library for Zotero, I was asked twice in a few weeks how to save automatically "Supplementary data" instead of manually. It is important for our searchers.
I change my Zotero preferences just now for "extensions.zotero.translators.attachSupplementary" = True
and test using Firefox with an article in Nature genetics and another in a Science Direct journal (European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry) but whithout success.
I have been using Zotero for decades, but only recently got frustrated enough with Supplementary info to look for this solution (having always manually downloaded Suppl Info and then attached it to a file.) I am saddened to learn that I've been missing out for almost ten years and extremely grateful for having discovered it now.
It is becoming much more common for journals to relegate what used to be standard part of an article (e.g. experimental methods) to supplementary information, so downloading it as a matter of course is very handy. Thanks!
+1 for having this be a more automated / less hidden option.
This setting does not work on Chrome for any of the journals listed. I believe this is the most important feature lacking from Zotero. It is deeply frustrating right now to add files after download.
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http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v482/n7384/full/nature10840.html#/supplementary-information
Science and Nature are the two journals I've encountered that use this most.
1) A more general but not automatic solution might be to do something like "Down them all". For example, the user could automatically download the citation info into the zotero database. Then user could go to the webpage with the supplementary info, right click on the reference in the zotero database and select a "download supp info" menu item. This would bring up a window with the various links in the page and the user could select which of these to download and associate with that particular reference. Although it isn't automatic, it wouldn't take that long. In addition, sometimes there are supplementary videos which are very big and most users probably wouldn't want these downloaded automatically (although downloading a link might be nice)
2) As a longer term solution, the fact that you would need to write a custom interpreter for every journal is a problem. A standardized vocabulary (e.g. xml variant) for types of information associated with a paper seems like it would be a huge boon for reference programs which are probably becoming one of the main ways users interact with journals. Perhaps the people at zotero could get together with other reference managers and work with journals to make an open universal standard. Easier said than done, I imagine, but it's hard to imagine what a better general solution could be.
- HighWire 2.0
- Nature Publishing Group
- ScienceDirect
- Cell Press
- ACS Publications
See Translator Hidden Preferences for instructions on enabling this feature.This will not yet work in Chrome or Safari.
If there are journals that are not supported yet, please let us know.
Edit: updated supported sites
Unfortunately I don't have any of the translator hidden preferences in my about.config, either in Firefox or Standalone (i.e. a search for "extensions.zotero.translators." returns nothing). Any advice? I already tried manually updating my translators.
Environment details:
OSX 10.6
Zotero 4.0.6
Firefox 20.0
For convenience, the two preferences controlling supplementary attachment behavior are:
extensions.zotero.translators.attachSupplementaryextensions.zotero.translators.supplementaryAsLink
Any chance of this coming to chrome?
I set the "translators.attachSupplementary" preference to "true" in Zotero v5.0.66, however, it is still not saving supplementary data for Science journals.
I tried using Zotero Connector for both Firefox and Chrome. Neither of them have the preference "translators.attachSupplementary".
Example journal: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/323/5921/1590/tab-pdf (DOI: 10.1126/science.1168375 ).
HighWire 2.0
Nature Publishing Group
ScienceDirect
Cell Press
ACS Publications
We're happy to take reports on it not working for any of those or requests for others, but I don't think it's a huge priority to expand this functionality.
It would be helpful if the supplements from Science (https://www.science.org/) and Physical Review journals (such as https://journals.aps.org/prl/) could be added, provided that the mechanism does in fact work.
I change my Zotero preferences just now for "extensions.zotero.translators.attachSupplementary" = True
and test using Firefox with an article in Nature genetics and another in a Science Direct journal (European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry) but whithout success.
Some hope forthcoming ? !
It is becoming much more common for journals to relegate what used to be standard part of an article (e.g. experimental methods) to supplementary information, so downloading it as a matter of course is very handy. Thanks!
+1 for having this be a more automated / less hidden option.