Suggestion - Cover flow view of archived pdfs

ebeng
Would it be possible to enable users to browse through previews of their pdf attachments (the way that itunes lets you browse cover art for a library or playlist, and the way os X lets you preview files within a folder, without opening them?). When all my pdfs were in one folder, I could browse through them quickly without actually opening them to find the one I wanted, to take a quick look at a figure, etc..
I like the idea of having all my pdfs archived in my zotero library, but it's harder to explore them quickly, and to recognize them visually when they're squirreled away in separate folders (which aren't as readily accessible through the finder). this would be resolved if zotero could display attachments associated with selected files in preview mode.
thanks for a great product!
  • mronkko
    There is a plugin for quick look.

    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/11441/new-plugin-zoteroquicklook/#Item_2
  • kithairon
    @ebeng: It sounds like you're on OS X. Have you tried creating a smart folder in Finder, specifying as search criteria (a) your zotero-stroage directory and (b) the file type ("kind") as pdf? – You geht a smartfolder in your finder's sidebar with all your pdfs in Zotero, sortable as wished. (In my case by author_year_title.pdf) For a preview: cmd+a and spacebar will bring them up in QuickLook.
  • Pachuco
    I complete agree that there should be a possibility of browsing book covers. Even more, the book cover should be part of the Zotero pane when browsing your library.

    The main reason is that our visual memory is way superior to our ability to recall book titles.

    The option of installing the plugin ZoteroQuickLook I find inferior - besides not working in my case (I've posted on that issue elsewhere). That plugin requires maComfort to be installed which will add (yet another) service to Windows, besides limiting certain functionality (e.g. Ctrl+arrow key to jump words will cease to work; maybe it can be disabled maybe not; maybe other things are affected as well, maybe not).

    Nice implementations of book browsers are done in Apple iTunes and Calibre (the latter much slower).
  • Negyb
    edited February 4, 2024
    As the post from almost 15 YEARS AGO suggested iTunes, Calibre can do this (so can Bookends)

    Any chance of implementing a Cover Flow view (and cover grid) which can display the cover images of a book PDF ... (or even better fetch them with the option to show the stored jpg or PDF first page) ...... it is such a wonderful way to view and browse a personal library, since our visual memories of book covers adds another dimension to the memory of the book itself (imagine searching for CD's in a music library by titles alone!)

    Come on folks, 15 YEARS, some of us have been waiting for this... is it even on the roadmap?

    The new 7 beta is fabulous (congrats), this request (and custom fields) would make Zotero the absolute best solution for the digital humanities!
  • burgarth
    I also want to support this request. Now that the preview function is implemented, perhaps it would be relatively straight forward to implement this?
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