Differences between uploading a file directly in the app and uploading a file from chrome extension

brandonescamilla
I'm looking into the "technical" differences between uploading through the app and the Chrome extension. For example, if they are stored in different places, if the file is treated differently, if at database level there is a flag indicating the upload type, etc.
  • adamsmith
    There's no practical difference and they're not treated differently.
    If you need to tell the difference, files added directly from the browser have a URL and accessed date, those from the file system (obviously) don't. The only way that matters is that you have a "View Online" version for the former.
  • brandonescamilla
    Hey @adamsmith, thanks for answering my question! That was exactly what I was thinking. I'm using a Boox device that recently integrated with Zotero, but they seem to only sync files that were added directly through the Zotero app by dragging the file or using the upload PDF functionality. However, if you upload a file using the browser extension, the entry shows up with all the metadata, but the file itself doesn't sync.

    I'm doing some debugging to provide better feedback, and while I know this issue isn't on Zotero's end, it feels like Boox might be using the Zotero API incorrectly. Zotero's iOS and Android apps work perfectly, so I was wondering if the API only returns files with a specific flag or something like that. If there's no "real" difference, I'm not sure what they're doing wrong.

    Any thoughts?
  • adamsmith
    The files added using drag & drop are also attached to metadata in Zotero, right?
    If so, I have no idea why that'd be different. The API call to get them is exactly the same, you'd have to go to significant length to break one and not the other.
  • brandonescamilla
    I recently discovered that attachments have different metadata, including a field called linkMode. This field varies depending on how the file was attached, files from the app are labeled as imported_file, while files from the browser extension are marked as imported_url. Since I know there were issues with WebDAV, I suspect they might be disabling everything except imported_files. However, I haven't found a way to modify linkMode in attachments to verify this. The JS API doesn't allow me to modify this field because it's part of the attachment. Any ideas on how to approach this? Thanks in advance!
  • dstillman
    You should report this to them.
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