Retain visual information and access to hidden non-matching annotations

mjthoraval · 2026-02-22T17:26:37+00:00

It is nice that the non-matching annotations do not appear in the search results as the default. But it would still be useful to keep visible and accessible these non-matching annotations.

For example, I was looking for the annotations made in the articles of a specific author. So I searched for the author name in the Quick Search. Then I pressed on the '+' key to see which files had annotations. But none of the annotations appeared. Even the expand arrows next the PDFs file attachment disappeared, suggesting that none of my files had annotations.

Same problem when filtering by tag: if I filter only the items with a certain tag, all their annotations become invisible and inaccessible.

Would it be possible to keep the arrows to display the non-matching annotations even when no annotation matches the filtering?
For attachments already showing annotations in the items list, it could be a simple expand arrow next to the last matching annotation.

I have seen that it is still possible to toggle back all the annotations, with the hidden preference "extensions.zotero.hideContextAnnotationRows". But that goes back to the previous problem.

Zotero 9.0-beta.2+2aaf0c213 (64-bit)

dstillman · 2026-02-22T17:29:53+00:00

Oh, that's arguably a bug. If no annotations match the search, they should just appear normally under the attachment, but not expanded by default.

You can, of course, just clear the active search and then look at the annotations.

I have seen that it is still possible to toggle back all the annotations, with the hidden preference "extensions.zotero.hideContextAnnotationRows".

Note that this is just View → Hide Non-Matching Annotations.

mjthoraval · 2026-02-22T17:45:17+00:00

Thank you.

Keeping the information and access to the non-matching annotations even when some annotations match the search would still be nice and keep it consistent (with the expand arrow suggested).
In my example above, the name of the author could appear in the annotations (e.g. if it was highlighted in one of the references). Or one of the annotation could have been tagged with the tag used for filtering. It would be strange in that case that the other annotations of that item would not be visible or accessible.

You can, of course, just clear the active search and then look at the annotations.

For items spread over the library, it is not straightforward to keep all the search results visible at once.
Same problem if I try to use an advanced search.

dstillman · 2026-02-22T20:42:23+00:00

Keeping the information and access to the non-matching annotations even when some annotations match the search would still be nice and keep it consistent (with the expand arrow suggested).

I'm not sure what you mean by "expand arrow". It can't be the same sort of twisty used for the attachment, because that implies hierarchy. So this would require some other solution — e.g., some "Show all" text at the bottom of the matching annotations. That's certainly worth considering, but it's a different problem from the other one you listed.

mjthoraval · 2026-02-22T22:29:12+00:00

It may be something like this:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u265723/hqq9t7qxsis3tolffkqz.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u265723/ffbydwy3keph2tpows2z.png

Or like the Expand all / Collapse button above a thread of mails in Gmail, eventually with white lines in between annotations where some annotations are hidden:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u265723/u2rmd97539f3mtos0hfu.png
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zotero.org/images/forums/u265723/wshtfsz3qwyu6t62cc14.png

Or even a modified expand icon next to the attachment.

Or any other icons and positions that gives this idea of expanding downward or upward, which does not imply hierarchy in the sense of Parent Item > Attachment > Annotation. So, indeed, a "Show all" / "Hide non-matching" button. But still with the idea that there is a difference between the matching and non-matching annotations, so different from expanding a long list.

Other ways could work also. The main point is that it needs to be something on each item to display the information that there are hidden annotations and give access to them, vs a global View option that does not show which items have hidden annotations.
I don't know if there are other software where such options are available.