Find items in no collection
Is it possible to list those items that are not part of any collection?
I find it quite unwieldy to use the current method of sorting items with tags only ("collections" are practically tags). The traditional, strict hierarchy of folders would be more useful for sorting and remembering where stuff is (for me at least)...
Anyway, I realize that Zotero is unlikely to change its basic sorting concept, however, it would be tremendously useful to be able to find those items that are not in any collection. With my current way of organizing stuff I expect every item to be in at least one collection. Otherwise it's "lost" (in the huge pile of items that's "My Library").
I found some 2-year old requests for this feature, and I see that at that time this was not possible. I wonder if it is possible in the current 2.0 version?
I find it quite unwieldy to use the current method of sorting items with tags only ("collections" are practically tags). The traditional, strict hierarchy of folders would be more useful for sorting and remembering where stuff is (for me at least)...
Anyway, I realize that Zotero is unlikely to change its basic sorting concept, however, it would be tremendously useful to be able to find those items that are not in any collection. With my current way of organizing stuff I expect every item to be in at least one collection. Otherwise it's "lost" (in the huge pile of items that's "My Library").
I found some 2-year old requests for this feature, and I see that at that time this was not possible. I wonder if it is possible in the current 2.0 version?
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/1233/
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/9133/
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/9271/
The last thread in that list has a link to an external program (in python) that can be used to sweep up orphan entries and file them in a "0-Orphans" collection. Not for the fainthearted, but it worked for me.
It was written against a trunk version of Zotero about a week ago. I don't know enough about the database schema to say, with any certainty, how well it will work against various flavors of 2.0. You'd have to try it and find out, keeping in mind all the warnings and disclaimers in the script comments about backing up your data, et cetera.