expand / collapse button
I'm requesting an expand / collapse all button (to be clicked with mouse) and or default setting.
This was requested here http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/191
and discussed here http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4255
Both topics were closed, but the feature does not exist, except via a keyboard shortcut.
This was requested here http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/191
and discussed here http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/4255
Both topics were closed, but the feature does not exist, except via a keyboard shortcut.
or the the new items buttons (manual, by doi, by page) could be combined to one menu. personally I rarely use these - I use the icon in the location bar, and the citation is downloaded.
or as user verity suggests, something in the context menu
People use different parts of the GUI - if you do archival work, for example, the manual add new item is crucial, if you work a lot on regular web sites the "add new item from current page" etc.
The contest menu, too, is pretty packed. Adding more stuff always has a downside - using it takes longer, its harder to overlook the options etc.
Also, using + and - to expand and collapse lists is standard in other applications as well as OS, which would be another reason against using up menu space - Zotero just can't include in its GUI all functions that exist in the OS in general just because many people aren't familiar with them:
You can also use ctrl+a to select all items, ctrl+click to select several non-adjacent ones, etc. etc.
maybe the context menu is packed because it is duplicating some functionality of the toolbar (eg add attachment)
ok, if there's no space, then here's another feature request: customizable toolbar. one could easily pick and choose the most useful buttons, problem solved
I always think that getting a reasoned no is preferable to getting no answer at all.
Customizable toolbars would be nice - but I imagine a good amount of work.
I'm curious though - now that you know the keyboard shortcut - why are you still so set on having a GUI button?
Using the keyboard is annoying, particularly when just about everything else can be done with the mouse. The two-key combination for (+), even more so.
Also, as mentioned, it's something I would use a lot more than some of the add item buttons, so it just seems bizarre to have a lot of ways to do things I don't need, and a hard way to do something I would use a lot.
I understand it probably won't get any attention. But it is still a feature request. I've never written any FF extensions, but wouldn't the fact that FF has customizable toolbars make that an easy thing to implement?
If you want to avoid cluttering the GUI, how about a toggle in the preferences window to collapse all or expand all by default?
My biggest reason for wanting this is for search results. I would much prefer for search results to be collapsed by default, so I can more easily see all entries that include my search text in the title/author, as opposed to fulltext. Here's an illustration of what I mean: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~kjamison/zoterename/#collapse
I tried adding such a feature to a Zotero addon I wrote a while back (at the link above), but it was a bit of a hack and seems to raise Firefox warnings from time to time.
Any possibility of adding this simple preference?
You can see that on your screenshot one item is actually not expanded.
EDIT: also thanks for the reply :)
Thanks.
As for space: both the add buttons (notes and attachements) can go in the (+) button. They're not THAT often used, and they bring up sub-menus anyway.
I only now discovered the +/-, but it took me ages to figure out it only works from the number pad, not from the main keyboard. No idea why that should be a Good Thing; definitely obscurity was bad in this case.
And no, the - key is not an alternative, as I have to click into another part of the Zotero window to make it work.
To clarify this: When I'm entering a search term, I want to stop searching as soon as the search has narrowed down sufficiently, but if even one of the top items has several attachments (and in one of them the search is a hit), I won't be able to see the items below. In this case, I cannot just press '-', as this merely adds it to the search string. Instead, I have to click into the pane below, press '-' to collapse items, and then click back into the search field to continue typing my search string (to narrow down the results), however, this will instantly expand the nodes again. This is a stupid and counterintuitive behaviour.
If it was a real shortcut, it would at least work from within the search field. I don't think, for example, that Alt+'-' is taken (nor is Alt+'+').
The simplified search mode is something that has been promised for years now, but maybe it's time to listen to users and implement a quick solution rather than the complex one. Customizable shortcuts would be on the top list. Or customizable toolbars - as even on my tiny netbook, there is still space for at least ten more buttons.
Another solution would be to prioritize search results where the search string is found in the metadata and list them first - another often requested feature that would mirror the behaviour of just about any search engine on the web.