But what if you add another shortcut which would expand notes only? As in the expanded view the beginning of every note is shown, you already know what it's about. And if you click onto it - you immediately see the full note text in the right pane.
That would be a good solution for me, and it still leaves the room for additional features in the right hand pane. I think this would in fact be better for me than bringing back the notes tab - as with this suggestion I can scan a (neat) list with just my eyes, without even having to touch the keyboard.
I agree with Mark that this would be confusing, though a similar—yet potentially clearer—alternative would be a filter mechanism.
Very early versions of Zotero displayed search results independent of hierarchy, so matching child notes displayed as top-level items. This was simultaneously alarming and, for some use cases, helpful. One way to restore such functionality in a more explicit, user-controlled manner, as well as to provide a view like what Ben describes, would be a control (plus associated shortcut keys) to filter the type of items (item/note/attachment) that displayed in the middle pane. Turning off items and attachments would cause all notes in the library/collection/search to be displayed without hierarchy. Turning off just attachments would provide the view that Ben describes (but double-clicking on an item would still open the best-available attachment).
I think selectively expanding only some child items is a confusing idea from a UI point of view.
Then call the function "show notes" :)
Note are may be just another type of attachment from the point of view of technical implementation.
But they are very different in that they represent the user produced accompanying content, as opposed to (most) snapshots and PDFs. From that point of view they could be rather related to tags. Which are actually also child items in a sense, but not displayed in the expanded view.
--------- BTW, typing "note" into the quick search displays all notes in the expanded view (it also of cause display every other item containing the pretty common word "note").
@ Ben 58
"But then realized there are also people who attach a lot of tags/keywords to references."
This is why I suggested to display tags separated by commas or semicolons and not by breaks, to have them displayed one after another, not below each other. This would save scarce screen space. In my experience, tags are important for input, not for viewing. Once I wrote down the tags, I do not need to see them again.
Note are may be just another type of attachment from the point of view of technical implementation.
But they are very different in that they represent the user produced accompanying content, as opposed to (most) snapshots and PDFs. From that point of view they could be rather related to tags.
This is exactly the reason that I think having a notes tab in the right panel makes (and made) sense. Notes are metadata like tags. Most attachments on the other hand have a much closer, intrinsic relation with the bibliographic record, which is why they belong in the middle pane were all records are shown.
This is why I suggested to display tags separated by commas or semicolons and not by breaks, to have them displayed one after another, not below each other.
Or even as a tag cloud? [He says naively, knowing nothing at all about how easy or difficult it would be to get them to behave in a resizing pane.]
Tags and related items seem quite cognate concepts to me, and if we need to drop a tab for space amalgamating them seems to make sense. They're both about the item's place in a network of ideas. Links to related could be put beneath a tag cloud in the right pane.
What would a tag cloud for only a single resource look like? This discussion concerns the tab display in the right-most pane, for the singe selected reference. The tag selector in the left-most pane that applies to the currently selected collection can already be made into a tag cloud: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4553/#Comment_19655
I suppose in theory you could size the tags on the current item according to the number of items in the current collection or sub-collection it belongs to, but it probably doesn't make much sense. I was just trying to think of ways to reduce the amount of space numerous tags could take up in the pane, to allow the possibility of combining 'tags' and 'related'. Migugg's suggestion of just separating them with commas is much simpler.
I'd like to add that in addition to the lack of tabs (which I liked), the dates column in the notes view is blank, and has been since version 1.0. Is this on purpose? How do I edit that column? In other words, when I list all my notes (the middle column), I have a Date and a Title column..the Title column has the title of my notes, but the Date column is blank. How can I fix this?
My apologies if this has already been discussed or is a known issue.
Gotcha. So there is no way to put a date on a note, other than typing it as the first line of a note? Or use Date Added (and that can't be edited in Notes)?
Just an idea: Perhaps "Notes" should be treated as "References"...? But I think such discussions—to treat references and notes similarly, or just to give notes an "Info" tag, or even to allow multiple field notes for one reference, for more precise notetaking (as in the current versions of Sente for OS X)—are digressions from this thread...:) Sorry about that.
In any case, I'm all for Notes getting tabs (Info, Tags, Related) like References do. Why not?
rvd, on the status of Notes, there is this thread, which I think raises the same issue and a possible solution. I wonder what the devs think about making (standalone) notes more like grown-up references.
I started using Zotero because it was so user friendly and it allowed me to add notes and attachments including webshots and files easily which greatly assisted in my research. But now I can't find where my notes are short of clicking on each item in the collection individually (and there are well over 500 with more to be added) and I can't find which in my collection have the webshots that are needed for tracking my research without clicking on each item in the collection. Also the tabs allowed me to easily maneuver when adding new items to collection by just moving down the tabs, now I have to click between multiple panes with no obvious path and no obvious marker showing what has and has been done when I get interrupted by life, which makes data entry harder and data harder to use and track.
Redunancy may not be logical for a computer, but for humans redundancy is useful - it is required for learning. My vote, please put the tabs back so my poor non-computer brain can accomplish its tasks more easily.
As for the plus in the middle pane helping, it seems to only help if you actually mentally class items by how many attachments/notes they have as the plus sign moves the list from alphabetical by title or author to listing by number of attachments/notes, and I don't know about others, but I certainly don't find things by how many notes/attachments they have.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that you use the + column. Rather: Pressing the '+' key on your keyboard when an item in the middle pane is selected will expand all items in the pane.
pswak - for what you want, toggling to fullscreen and then expanding all items by pressing the plus key on your keyboard (as noksagt suggests) would actually seem like a quicker way of achieving what you want.
Also the tabs allowed me to easily maneuver when adding new items to collection by just moving down the tabs, now I have to click between multiple panes with no obvious path and no obvious marker showing what has and has been done when I get interrupted by life, which makes data entry harder and data harder to use and track.
This I don't understand - what is the workflow you used to have and don't have anymore? Maybe there is another way of doing this?
As for redundancy - redundancy in computer programs has nothing to do with redundancy in learning - they refer to entirely different issues. I do believe that some degree of redundancy in computer programs (i.e. several ways of doing the same thing) is a good idea - and Zotero does provide this (cf. for example all the different ways to get a pdf into Zotero). But there is also a trade-off in keeping all the different ways in which the same thing can be done working in a program and having a smoothly running, non-cluttered software and interface. So I think the idea that redundancy is something that should be kept within limits (especially where it takes up lot of resources - space in this case) is very reasonable.
We'll be restoring the Notes tab to allow for scanning through notes (though in some cases, such as pswak's above, I would agree with adamsmith that expanding all items with + is more useful). We will not be restoring the Attachments tab, for the reasons I mentioned above. Thanks to everyone for the feedback.
The Notes tab will not be returning for 2.0b7.2, which will be released later today, but it will return soon.
Great thanks to the developers of zotero. I really appreciate your work. And it is great to see that user-imput is also appreciated. The disappearance of the Notes tab really bothered my work, as it did to others. So I'm happy to hear that this will be changed back again.
Keep the good work going!
Greetings!
(in my case actually, i also found the attachement tab usefull, to see at a glance which and what kind of items were attached. but as nobody else seems to care about that, you should probably keep it the way it is now)
Just want to add my thanks as well, and particularly for the continuously positive and constructive way you take and respond to user comments. It's appreciated.
I would also like to thank everyone who commented and especially to the developers that were so involved in the conversation. This is precisely why these open access kinds of programs and add-ons will ultimately win over proprietary software.
The Notes tab has returned in 2.0b7.4, now available.
The "Add" button now opens a new note in the inline editor rather than a separate window (for consistency with the toolbar button and context-menu option). If you'd like a new window, Shift-click the button.
I am very sad that the Attachments tab isn't returning. I have an attachment for every single thing in Zotero, and like someone said upthread, it is non-intuitive (and extra work) for me to use the center pane or context menu. I'll get used to it, but it makes the program less user-friendly and more finicky for me. I wish this could at least be a customization option.
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Very early versions of Zotero displayed search results independent of hierarchy, so matching child notes displayed as top-level items. This was simultaneously alarming and, for some use cases, helpful. One way to restore such functionality in a more explicit, user-controlled manner, as well as to provide a view like what Ben describes, would be a control (plus associated shortcut keys) to filter the type of items (item/note/attachment) that displayed in the middle pane. Turning off items and attachments would cause all notes in the library/collection/search to be displayed without hierarchy. Turning off just attachments would provide the view that Ben describes (but double-clicking on an item would still open the best-available attachment).
Note are may be just another type of attachment from the point of view of technical implementation.
But they are very different in that they represent the user produced accompanying content, as opposed to (most) snapshots and PDFs. From that point of view they could be rather related to tags. Which are actually also child items in a sense, but not displayed in the expanded view.
---------
BTW, typing "note" into the quick search displays all notes in the expanded view (it also of cause display every other item containing the pretty common word "note").
"But then realized there are also people who attach a lot of tags/keywords to references."
This is why I suggested to display tags separated by commas or semicolons and not by breaks, to have them displayed one after another, not below each other. This would save scarce screen space. In my experience, tags are important for input, not for viewing. Once I wrote down the tags, I do not need to see them again.
[He says naively, knowing nothing at all about how easy or difficult it would be to get them to behave in a resizing pane.]
Tags and related items seem quite cognate concepts to me, and if we need to drop a tab for space amalgamating them seems to make sense. They're both about the item's place in a network of ideas. Links to related could be put beneath a tag cloud in the right pane.
http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4553/#Comment_19655
I suppose in theory you could size the tags on the current item according to the number of items in the current collection or sub-collection it belongs to, but it probably doesn't make much sense. I was just trying to think of ways to reduce the amount of space numerous tags could take up in the pane, to allow the possibility of combining 'tags' and 'related'. Migugg's suggestion of just separating them with commas is much simpler.
My apologies if this has already been discussed or is a known issue.
Richard
Firefox 3.5, OSX 10.6.1, Zotero 2.0b7.1
Just an idea: Perhaps "Notes" should be treated as "References"...? But I think such discussions—to treat references and notes similarly, or just to give notes an "Info" tag, or even to allow multiple field notes for one reference, for more precise notetaking (as in the current versions of Sente for OS X)—are digressions from this thread...:) Sorry about that.
In any case, I'm all for Notes getting tabs (Info, Tags, Related) like References do. Why not?
Redunancy may not be logical for a computer, but for humans redundancy is useful - it is required for learning. My vote, please put the tabs back so my poor non-computer brain can accomplish its tasks more easily.
Maybe there is another way of doing this?
As for redundancy - redundancy in computer programs has nothing to do with redundancy in learning - they refer to entirely different issues. I do believe that some degree of redundancy in computer programs (i.e. several ways of doing the same thing) is a good idea - and Zotero does provide this (cf. for example all the different ways to get a pdf into Zotero). But there is also a trade-off in keeping all the different ways in which the same thing can be done working in a program and having a smoothly running, non-cluttered software and interface. So I think the idea that redundancy is something that should be kept within limits (especially where it takes up lot of resources - space in this case) is very reasonable.
We'll be restoring the Notes tab to allow for scanning through notes (though in some cases, such as pswak's above, I would agree with adamsmith that expanding all items with + is more useful). We will not be restoring the Attachments tab, for the reasons I mentioned above. Thanks to everyone for the feedback.
The Notes tab will not be returning for 2.0b7.2, which will be released later today, but it will return soon.
Keep the good work going!
Greetings!
(in my case actually, i also found the attachement tab usefull, to see at a glance which and what kind of items were attached. but as nobody else seems to care about that, you should probably keep it the way it is now)
Cheers!
The "Add" button now opens a new note in the inline editor rather than a separate window (for consistency with the toolbar button and context-menu option). If you'd like a new window, Shift-click the button.