Feature Request: Cover Flow or Book Jacket Image display View

edited February 11, 2025
Would it be possible in a future development for the Zotero team to consider putting a book cover (cover art) display option (perhaps including a field which stores the Book cover/jacket image as a jpeg). Its obviously less relevant for journal articles, but it would be a nice way to browse through the book items in ones library.
I would just like to know if this is possible and or being considered for a future build? And if so roughly when might we see something like this?
Programs like Bookpedia, Calibre, Bookends, DL, etc have this cover image view

https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u5479963/brmd3lm1qsbjworpasaq.png


  • Very much agree with this. Have requested in the past!
  • or possibly draw from Calibre's open source implementation of this feature?

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u5479963/69l53wj1inds74t1andw.png
  • I agree so much
  • Just a: yes, please!
  • If this is not a feasible feature request, can the developers let me know. I was just curious if something like this is on the horizon at all?
  • edited April 24, 2025
    Hi @Negyb, I just released an android app that creates a cover view, ZotShelf. It shows the covers in a collection in Zotero side by side. It is currently in closed beta, but send me a mail on appbugge@gmail.com if you wan to try. More info in this post:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/123769/zotshelf-new-app-that-shows-zotero-epub-covers-on-android-open-for-beta-testers#latest
    and on my website:
    https://oyvindsolheim.com/other/zotshelf/
  • Thats amazing oyvindbs, sadly i'm locked into a Mac OS system. Any chance your app will come to Mac OS?
  • edited May 2, 2025
    Hi @oyvindbs,
    It's really great and it would be so useful ! Thanks a lot !
    I work with a lot of comics, and to have a cover view in Zotero would be so nice.
    Question : most of my comics in Zotero are references only (no epub nor pdf file). Would it be possible to make ZotShelf working as the Book Search + Dataview plugins in Obsidian about covers ? Meaning : import an image URL value with the Book Search plugin ("coverURL" value) and make it been displayed (through Dataview) ?
    [EDIT : of course, the coverURL link targets an image which is saved locally. Works very smoothly and all parameters are very easy to set up]

    I am not at all a developer, so what I am asking for may be totally irrelevant, or too different from what you are looking to achieve...
  • Hehe, I'm trying to recreate the app as a plugin but as I'm only vibe coding it, I can't promise anything. I'm not an Obsidian user and I'm not sure what the plugins you're using are. Do all your books have a link to the cover image in their notes? Or is the link to the image only available when you use the plugin? What format is the images in? png/jpg or something else?
  • +1 on this feature request!
  • I'm using Calibre and Zotero separately for many years. It is really useful feature, it is better to use Zotero only. Calibre is very huge with many useless features. +1 for this feature.
  • Would be a useful feature.
    +1 too.
    FG
  • You're in luck! I've made two implementations of this feature. One for the browser and one for android.

    1. The browser one is live here: zotshelf.netlify.app You can log in to your Zotero account and choose a collection and (if you like) a tag. Then the page renders (most) of the book covers from the epubs or pdfs. You can choose if you want the covers to link to the Zotero program (if you have it installed) or the web library if you are on an Android or without the program.

    2. The Android one is not in public beta but I'm looking for beta testers so you can contact me at appbugge@gmail.com if you'd like to try. The app works the same way, you log in and it shows the book covers from a collection/tag. You can create multiple tabs, each showing a separate collection/tag combination. Since the Android Zotero app can't open epubs (nor have implemented the internal links) it only links to the web library but the epub reader there is very good.

    Hope you like the apps! and please tell me if you have any comments or feedback.
  • I did give a try.
    Some problems.
    On a collection, it did not find any eBook or PDF, so no cover to display (= normal).
    On another (big) collection, it never ends loading.
    See screenshots.

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u11873/afa7ssuhyvwlj8mldnu1.jpg

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u11873/rfsa7z7hs9s208izp57t.jpg

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u11873/rtkjxbcnd0u10i4qtr2y.jpg
  • Great that you tried it! Very cool! I hope you get it to work.

    Regarding the first problem, can you try again with the first collection (no items) and check if it works if you just choose it again (or go in the settings and press apply changes)? I think it sometimes does not work and needs a little push.

    Regarding the last problem (too many files) I can add a maximum limit. Currently there was first a max at 25 (because the API gives out 25 each time I think) and now it's unlimited. I'll try to add a max 50 and an option to increase it if you have a lot of time or are on a powerful computer.
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