Upgrade StorageAdd citation through drag and drop... in Word plugin Field style?
Since adding a citation a frequent task, it's worth spending effort to have its workflow as quick, clean, and minimally disruptive to the author's train of thought as possible. Right now I use a dual monitor setup with full-screen Zotero in one and full-screen Word in the other. Works great, but adding citations is still disruptive and distracting.
At a point in writing where I ought to add a citation, I switch my attention to Zotero to explore my notes and make sure I pick the right document. Then, what I'd really like to do is drag the document name from Zotero to Word, and have it appear as a citation in the Word plugin field format.
Current practice (even with a keyboard shortcut) adds extra, distracting steps: find the right citation in Zotero, remember it, switch focus to word, move the cursor to the right place, select 'add citation', recall the citation name and author, navigate through the list to find it, switch to Zotero because I've forgotten the article title, switch back to Word again, succeed in finding it, click 'OK'.
The existing full citation drag-and-drop is simple and effective, but not as useful for me as plugin field citations would be. Is this a technical nightmare?
At a point in writing where I ought to add a citation, I switch my attention to Zotero to explore my notes and make sure I pick the right document. Then, what I'd really like to do is drag the document name from Zotero to Word, and have it appear as a citation in the Word plugin field format.
Current practice (even with a keyboard shortcut) adds extra, distracting steps: find the right citation in Zotero, remember it, switch focus to word, move the cursor to the right place, select 'add citation', recall the citation name and author, navigate through the list to find it, switch to Zotero because I've forgotten the article title, switch back to Word again, succeed in finding it, click 'OK'.
The existing full citation drag-and-drop is simple and effective, but not as useful for me as plugin field citations would be. Is this a technical nightmare?
For example, what if I could select a quick copy format that would produce text matching the 'field codes' that the Word plugin would have? Something like:
{ ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM {"sort":true,"citationItems":[{"position":1,"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/98972/items/MTKKVATR"]}]} }.
This might get rolled into the ongoing debate about supporting EndNote-style 'parse bracketed citation slugs'.
The solution would indeed be to improve what currently exists as RTF scan. You can, of course, currently drag and drop citations in a style which the RTF scan recognizes, but the method has a whole bunch of downsides as it is now, as you know after reading the respective threads.
One problem to start with is that it's possible to have several Zotero windows open at the same time with different items selected (e.g. if you use one in fullscreen mode and one for browsing). There's probably more and that's not even getting into the technicalities of implementation.
I'd suggest you give working with the plugin a try - I actually don't see why that would be _that_ much slower, considering you have the advantage of never having to "leave" your word processor.
Would being able to view notes from the plugin be enough to achieve that?
Could the following be a possible way?
In the Firefox plugin, when right clicking on a reference, there could be an option like: "Remember for citing". You could then perform this on one or even more citations. When switching to Word, these citations are added at cursor positon either by a hotkey or by and additional button.
When clicking on the normal insert ciation button, this citation would be highlighted or there would be an appropriate multiple sources field open with these ciations in it. You could perform changes.
The list of remembered ciations would be cleared after either inserting them directly or using the insert citation button with or without inserting these citations.
I think this would be highly convenient, though certainly quite some work to implement.
I would very much agree this is a problem/major frustration with how I currently have to use zotero, but....
... I propose an alternative way of solving this--and, at the same time, solving several other work flow issues I and some others seem to have. This could be achieved by progress on a bibtex/ or personal citation key, https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/763. (no complaints, per se, amazing progress in other areas of zotero developments!!)
IF one could
1) add a function to copy a proposed "citation key" into system clipboard from selected entry (entries?) in the firefox zotero pane (*perhaps* by (a) creating the proposed citation key field and (b) creating a variant (but slightly strange) csl that would just copy this field to clipboard, when use ""create bibliography from selected item")
2) then one could paste that citation_key (keys?) in plugin search box that (optionally?) included a search of citation key field (even if not locally unique, would still retrieve a quite small number of candidate references)
3) and for other purposes, paste that key in a plain text file for use in LATEX \cite{key} or similar ability to note in plain text source of reference )
4) that could be exported, when doing Bibtex exports to update that bibtex file
...Then this would be excellent usability advance for at least me....
...esp. where that proposed citation key found in the "info" view might be
1) automagically (and optionally?) created upon initial entry of a reference,
(eg. FirstAuthorLastName_Year or FirstAuthorLastName_FirstTitleWords_Year). but
2) might be later revised by hand from the "info" view, if not unique and uniqueness is desired. e.g. adding "a" or "b" to end of key)
Of course, if local uniqueness is required (for indexing?), then could, perhaps, add logic to automatically adds "a" "b", etc. if needed, when uniqueness is violated in local a database? Obviously if not do the test for uniqueness one could not expect a zotero function that *demanded* a *guarantee* of local or global uniqueness, but even doing a query on a (initially) non-unique local key would likely only grab a few entries in openoffice plugin search or latex/bibtex use and be far better than current.
{extra details, if desired, are below}
[ Currently, given size of my database, I can see the reference I want to use in the zotero firefox pane and then when do the search in openoffice to actually cite it, I frequently get *many* positive hits (30-100 hits!) and have to keep winnowing down the search but without losing the actual reference I want. Very distracting to have to spend even a few frustrating moments of tweaking the search per each reference and sometimes not even seeing it in list, when I can see the reference I want to use in other window. ( I actually like to keep a few files of "diary/log notes to myself" when reading the literature in either plain text (latex) or openoffice, just after I have inserted a reference; thus, the reference I want to insert is almost always selected in firefox pane, but robust linkages to the reference is difficult in that other text. ...Let us say it takes ~one to two extra minutes for plugin search optimization x ~30 to ~100 new articles I would want to archive and briefly comment on a minimum of x5 reading/library sessions/week == >5 hours/week and that would be a minimum for me if I used current cumbersome process to actually robustly cite references in those log files!!!.
]
[In future, ideally, I would like to be able to use a locally unique (or rarely "near-unique") citation label that can quickly enable me to do a search and retrieve references for use in:
1) _Openoffice plugin search
2) _plain text notes with ability to reference the original article (or at least usually <3 candidate references in my collection).
3) _latex \cite{bibtexkey}, regardless of methods used to generate or edit latex files..(thus avoiding much complexity of lyxpipe and allowing use of multiple latex or or plain text editors...sometimes I even use "cat" >> to append a reference to end of a 'inputted" latex file)
4) creates consistent updates of exported bibtex files (rather than the ad hoc fixes after exports that create many errors).
Creating a bibtex/citation key field would kill several "problematic birds" for me with one stone!