Sync schedule options

Matthew HudgensHaney
While I love the ability to sync my Zotero collection between my multiple computers, the current options are less than ideal. I can either have Zotero sync automatically (in which case I, and others, have a very slow FF) or sync manually (in which case I often forget to have Zotero sync before moving between computers). Would it be possible to put in some sort of schedule for syncing, similar to that of anti-virus programs & whatnot? (E.g. sync every day, or every 4 hours, or maybe even some user-specified amount of time?)

I know it would be very useful for me. Thanks
  • dstillman
    Automatic syncing really shouldn't cause Firefox to slow down unless you're adding quite a lot of items all the time or you're getting errors and syncs aren't actually going through. Part of the point of automatic syncs is that they should be nearly instantaneous (particularly on the client end).
  • Matthew HudgensHaney
    I have 700-800 items in my collection, so I definitely would not consider myself a "power user", but I do store my pdfs in Zotero, so I often have Zotero automatically grab pdfs. It's not the only time I've had speed issues, but things can certainly come to a halt when grabbing pdfs. Thoughts or suggestions? (other than "don't auto-grab pdfs")
  • ajlyon
    Grabbing PDFs (and the indexing that goes with it) is still the one place where I regularly get UI freezes. (I was getting them on syncing until recently, when I moved the data directory off my NTFS partition, for which access is apparently dog-slow in Linux)

    Perhaps there's something that can be done to move indexing to a separate thread (or something) to make Zotero more responsive when attaching files?
  • dstillman
    Well, PDF indexing might cause brief stalls, but that's a separate issue and should be discussed in a separate thread. Matthew, are you referring to syncing, or to saving of PDFs?
  • Matthew HudgensHaney
    Sorry about the lag time, I didn't realize that people had responded.

    Dan: As I understood it, the stall was caused by the simultaneous combination of saving pdfs and syncing (possibly also indexing pdfs). If I'm not currently saving pdfs, then syncing only results in a relatively minor lag. If I turn off auto-sync, then saving (with indexing) pdfs causes a relatively brief stall. If I save pdfs while auto-sync is on, then Zotero & FF stall for a much longer amount of time (relative to the number of pdfs grabbed).

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