export library fails

grguthrie
When I select "My Library" it shows 172 items,
but when I choose "File/export_Library" (as bookmarks) I only get 7 items.
Same if I export as .csv,except that includes 3 book references.

Why am I not getting the full list of all items?
(Same thing if I right-click on "My Library/Export Library".)
  • grguthrie
    similarly, trying to export using the URL API,
    I get 25 /184 items?

    api.zotero.org/users/1234/items?key=abcd&?format=json

    ???
  • adamsmith
    I really recommend staying away from the API if you're not comfortable with using APIs; you'll run into lots of issues. The API by default has a 25 item limit per call (and has a 100 item max; this is standard behavior) -- details are described in the documentation.

    I'm guessing you're not getting all items in the other formats because you have top level attachments, which aren't exported in most formats, which are designed for metadata.
  • grguthrie
    Thank you.
    I had missed the n=25 limit documentation.
    My goal is to get everything which has a URL link in it, so I can convert to a HTML page for backup.
    Some of my items are D&D of browser tabs, and show as "webpage".
    Others (most) are local desktop URL files, which are then listed as "documents", but with content of URLs.
    Both behave the same from Zotero and open the associated URL link, but seem to export differently.
    I have a few hundred other such web references, which I am reluctant to start depending on Zotero unless there is some way to save a local backup.
    Any suggestions?
    I guess I could API download in n=100 chunks, and then extract all "url" fields from the json file - yes?
  • grguthrie
    Ah, but I now see that all fields do not have a "url" field.
    So perhaps, my question should be, is there a way to get an export or dump of the library which would include all URL fields, not just webpage entries, but also those from file.url entries?
  • aborel
    edited 22 days ago
    As suggested by adamsmith, make sure all entries you want to export have a parent item where proper metadata can be recorded, create it if there isn't one:

    https://www.zotero.org/support/adding_items_to_zotero#standalone_attachments_and_parent_items

    Looking at the 1st screenshot in your other thread https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/123052/url-management-in-library-and-export#latest this seems to be the cause.

    Incidentally, support will be easier if you keep the discussion within the same thread:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#don_t_create_redundant_threads
  • grguthrie
    edited 22 days ago
    Thank you; I apologize for overlapping threads - I had a bunch of issues at first, and conflated them all in one post, later separating them.
    I read the reference you give, but don't quite understand the implications.
    As noted above, I had been trying to use it as a repository for various references, some directly from browser interface, others from previous links saved as file.html links. Browser links are typed as "webpage", but copied local file links as "attachment" and thus no parent meta data.
    In fact the display for an attachment does not show the file reference either, although on opening it one does get the original link displayed, so somewhere it must keep this, although not showing it in the UI.
    Doing a dump via the API, one can see the file reference, so I am assuming that it then just opens this file, which opens the link.
    So a few questions;
    1) is there a proper way to add existing file.url links so that some sort of export or dump will show them?
    Again, the goal is to be able to have some sort of way to dump the library and recover (backup) all urls in it.
    2) Would it then be an approach to do an API dump, and for all attachment items try to fetch the actual file item, and get the url from it?
    In the API dump, in the links{} section, only one link works (alternate), and from that I could not see in the returned html page how to get a link to the actual file.url to be able to grab the url from it (programmatically).
    I am willing to write a python program to do this, but don't see where there is enough data to do it.
    3) is there a better way to achieve my goal, just to be able to add existing file.url references, and get some sort of backup/dump of them all.??
    Thanks.
  • grguthrie
    I see now that file.url entries are saved as "attachments", and do not contain urls, but a link to the file which contains the url.
    in the API results for items, I do not even see a link to the original file so that I could grab the url from it myself (python program).
    Any suggestions?
    (I had also been asking this in another thread from the approach of using standard export tool options, so will continue it there so as to not overlap.
    comment/489329#Comment_489329 )
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