Upgrade Storage[Zotero 7 Beta] "Filters" / "Saved Searches" drop-down menu above the items tree
Saved Searches can be very powerful to do many things. As I am adding more saved searches, I feel that it is not very efficient to have them in the Collections Pane:
1) They do not behave like collections:
- cannot be nested
- cannot add more items in them
2) They cannot be grouped or reorganised: as the number of saved searches increases, this quickly clutters the Collections Pane.
3) Their position is not flexible, as they must appear between normal collections and special collections.
4) The exact same saved search and special collections need to be repeated in all the libraries, as they cannot be applied to another library.
5) I cannot navigate between collections while the saved search is active. For example, I would like to filter only the books, and check in which ones I have in different collections.
Moving the Saved searches and some of the special collections (Duplicate items, Unfiled Items, Retracted Items) to a drop-down menu on the left of the search above the items tree would solve all these problems:
- Can be reorganised and grouped (like bookmarks)
- Easy and fast access to a user defined list of filters
- Can easily filter only the notes, or the books, or the publications of the key authors in my field (using advanced search to narrow down their affiliations), ...
- Easily pin collections, or tags, or a combination of them, ...
- Clean-up the Collections Pane
- Can easily archive unused saved searches
The applied filter would just appear in the top bar of the items tree after being selected.
1) They do not behave like collections:
- cannot be nested
- cannot add more items in them
2) They cannot be grouped or reorganised: as the number of saved searches increases, this quickly clutters the Collections Pane.
3) Their position is not flexible, as they must appear between normal collections and special collections.
4) The exact same saved search and special collections need to be repeated in all the libraries, as they cannot be applied to another library.
5) I cannot navigate between collections while the saved search is active. For example, I would like to filter only the books, and check in which ones I have in different collections.
Moving the Saved searches and some of the special collections (Duplicate items, Unfiled Items, Retracted Items) to a drop-down menu on the left of the search above the items tree would solve all these problems:
- Can be reorganised and grouped (like bookmarks)
- Easy and fast access to a user defined list of filters
- Can easily filter only the notes, or the books, or the publications of the key authors in my field (using advanced search to narrow down their affiliations), ...
- Easily pin collections, or tags, or a combination of them, ...
- Clean-up the Collections Pane
- Can easily archive unused saved searches
The applied filter would just appear in the top bar of the items tree after being selected.
Being able to categorise the same library across many different dimensions with saved searches that could then be organised logically like collections and subcollections are, would be an organisational revolution (for me :) )