That's by design, see https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/439553/#Comment_439553

(dstillman -- this is a lot of reports about this, might be worth thinking a bit more about how to design this. The current change is clearly confusing users -- and the ones reporting are already among the more sophisticated users using the beta version)

Yes, we're going to 1) enable continuous renaming, 2) remove Rename File from Parent Metadata altogether when continuous renaming is enabled, and 3) if continuous renaming is disabled, show an indication that the file was renamed when running Rename File from Parent Metadata manually.

https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1685
https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/3230

I agree that the distinction between Title and Filename of attachments is very confusing in Zotero. I think that are several sources of confusion and simple steps that could be implemented to clarify them:

1) The field shown at the top of the right side pane for child items does not clearly indicate what it contains. I think it would already help a lot to add "Title" in front of it, in the same was as for the title of the parent item in the Info Tab.

2) When you drag and drop PDF files into the central pane, the Title and Filename fields are kept the same, giving the impression that they are the same. If the parent item is created automatically from a PDF file, the Title and Filename are the same, with the name generated from the metadata. This gives the impression that the Title is the same as the Filename. Based on the argument given in the other thread "there's no reason to repeat metadata from the parent row in the attachment title", I believe that this behaviour is wrong. I think that it would be more logical for the Title produced after automatic parent item creation to be something like "PDF".

3) Zotero does not display well multiple attachments. The main attachment is not identified, and the secondary attachments all have Title same as Filename, which is not modified when added directly as a secondary child attachment. This again fuels the confusion about the two fields. This will probably take more time to address properly.

4) Some people may see more value in seeing the Filename in the Title field (and therefore in the central pane) rather than an arbitrary "Full Text PDF" or other similar things. For these users, having another option in the Settings like "Automatically rename attachments Title as Filename" would prevent any confusion. Would there be any drawback to allow this option? Or simply an option to display the Filename in the central pane instead of the Title, to avoid erasing the information that may be stored in Title?

Or simply an option to display the Filename in the central pane instead of the Title, to avoid erasing the information that may be stored in Title?

We'd do this one if anything. As noted in the original discussion, the attachment title can contain important information about the file (e.g., "Submitted Version", "Accepted Version") and can also be useful for bulk operations (e.g., searching for all snapshots).

Useful discussion here - helpful to know how others might be distinguishing between the title of child items and its filename. After several years of near-daily Zotero usage, I must say that it had rarely occurred to me to distinguish between these. The only times I have encountered the idea that there *could* be a difference is in cases where I have added supplemental material under a parent item, and thus have two attachments.

My typical use case has always only been to expand the parent (and observe the child attachment's title) to confirm that the file has been renamed to my liking. In other words, I have intentionally pushed away the distinction between filename and title, because I haven't believed I needed it. Even with supplements, I have simply changed the title and made sure to check the "Rename Associated File" box. Now I understand what would happen if I hadn't checked that box, but at those times I was uncertain: those instances were the closest I ever got to fully recognizing any distinction between title and filename. Considering this more now, I can imagine some possible uses I might have for keeping them separate, but don't have any immediate use for that function. Therefore, I like the idea that dstillman also endorsed:

> "Or simply an option to display the Filename in the central pane instead of the Title, to avoid erasing the information that may be stored in Title?"

That way, my workflow (and maybe others who have similar workflows?) could remain unchanged, i.e., to only look at the child entry to confirm its filename is as expected (so that I can be sure that it will show up in a search using Everything or Alfred). Hopefully this adds some additional perspective!

For arXiv preprints, this works well (since the title is "arXiv Fulltext PDF"). Sadly, not for Biorxiv, where the the connectors title it as "Fulltext PDF".

We'll fix that.

@m.lana: It's explained at length above and in other threads — there's really no more to say on it. But as we say, we'll be adding an option to show the filename instead of the title for people who prefer that (even though filename duplicates the metadata that's already shown in the parent row).