Zotero 6.0.35 Snap Installation Won't Open PDFs Using System Default Reader

ventolinmono
edited October 3, 2024
Hi

I have already set up my system to open all pdf files with Okular which my file manager does well every time I double click any pdf document. The problem is that when I want to open pdfs from Zotero doing a double click it always asks me to choose the application to open pdfs showing the "Open With..." dialog. My Zotero preferences are already set to "Open PDFs using System Default" and I can not choose Okular from the "Custom..." option because both programs are Snaps and it replies: "Could not read the contents of okular. Error opening directory /home/user/snap/okular".

How can I make my Zotero Snap installation open pdf files on my preferred pdf reader without telling it each time to choose a program?
  • dstillman
    edited October 3, 2024
    You'd have to ask the package maintainers. We don't have anything to do with the Snap installation. We only support the tarball from this site and zotero-deb.

    https://www.zotero.org/support/installation#linux
  • ventolinmono
    edited October 3, 2024
    Ok thanks, will try to find out how to do it elsewhere then. One more question: Do you recommend using the tarball or deb instead of snap? I don't want it to suddenly update automatically from Zotero 6 to 7.
  • ventolinmono
    Also, regardless if they are snap packages, shouldn't Zotero use the System Default's configuration to open PDFs?
  • dstillman
    edited October 3, 2024
    Yes, we obviously recommend using a supported version. From the installation page:
    In particular, third-party packages may be sandboxed, breaking various functionality.
    The Zotero 6 tarball is not auto-updating to 7 yet, though it will at some point.

    I believe zotero-deb has a separate channel for Zotero 6.

    We don't provide support for Zotero 6 anymore.
  • ventolinmono
    edited October 3, 2024
    Ok. That was a short transition support time from 6 to 7. Anyways, thanks for such a great software!
  • dstillman
    The transition period was the year-plus that Zotero 7 was in beta, while we still put out updates to Zotero 6. Now that Zotero 7 is out and Help → "Check for Updates…" offers Zotero 7, there can't be further Zotero 6 updates, so there's no way we could support it — we literally can't fix anything in Zotero 6 anymore.
  • ventolinmono
    Ok I thought you meant tech support in the forums for Zotero 6, not new versions of Zotero 6 with bug fixes.
  • dstillman
    I mean both. Zotero 7 contains a huge number of improvements and bug fixes across the app. We can't spend time debugging things that have very likely already been fixed and where the most likely answer is "update to Zotero 7". And if something isn't fixed in Zotero 7 already, any fix would be in Zotero 7 anyway, so you'd have to update regardless.
  • ventolinmono
    edited October 3, 2024
    I understand it requires a lot of effort but I've learned my lesson not to update software as soon as a new version comes out unless it is an update that patches a security issue or the software is not working anymore. Software updates being recent and not thoroughly tested many times break and disrupt the workflow of the user, from having to reinstall the whole operating system to loosing configurations, compatibility and functionalities. If I can I will wait a couple of months more to update.
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