ZotFile - Advanced PDF management for Zotero

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  • Lubos
    Josha, I have just installed the latest v1.5.1 and now the menu items appear OK. I will do some testing in the next few days.

    What do you think of the idea of supporting subfolder names based on collection names?
  • Joscha
    edited February 24, 2011
    @lubos: It's a good idea but complicated through the fact that items can be in multiple collections. I am not sure whether there is a satisfying solution to that problem and I don't think that I will do it anytime soon.

    @katonag: A new version (1.5.3) is waiting for the Mozilla review. This one supports the renaming of individual attachments.

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zotfile/
    (the plugin should update automatically as soon as Mozilla approves it if you have already installed it)

    New 1.5.x features:
    - batch processing of existing attachments (renames and moves all attachments of selected items according to Zofile rules)
    - allows the user to organize files into subfolders using zotero metadata
    - renaming of individual attachments
    - bug related to multiple zotero windows resolved
    - The zotfile icon was replaced by two right-click menu items
    - Support for Firefox 4 and Zotero 2.1 (including support of zotero as a tab)
  • Lubos
    @Josha: I like having all my attachments stored in subfolders that resemble my subcollection hierarchies. If zotfile could do something like that automatically, that would be fantastic.
  • rotemhl
    Hi Joscha,

    Great plugin - I'm using it for almost 2 years now and it made my life much easier.
    Unfortunately with the automatic update to 1.5.1 on windowsXP and Zotero 2.0.9 the Zotfile button disappeared and the right click menu options, although there, do nothing.

    I know at least one of my friend who's having the same issue, which is unfortunate since stayed with Zotero 2.0.9 for the stability and didn't initiate the ZotFile update but was encouraged to do so, and now...
  • Joscha
    Hey rotemhl.
    just to clarify, you see the two menu items as shown in the screenshot but nothing happens when you use either of them? ('Attach New File' should have the same functionality as the button and 'Rename Existing Att.' should only do something if there are attached items)

    Can you use the error console to see whether any errors occur. Just go to Tools->Error Console, select the Errors pane and click clear. Use zotfile afterwards and see whether anything comes up. Not sure whether that's the same in FF 3.X

    Best.
  • rotemhl
    OK Joscha,

    I've checked it again from my home PC (same configuration), again the paper-clip button is gone but this time the "Attach new file" menu entry do the job.
    I think I know why wasn't it working yesterday - the destination dir was probably unmounted so it wasn't to the ZotFile.

    Rotemhl
  • Joscha
    I I have actually removed the icon... you can start zotfile one through the context menu...
  • polar
    hm, with linux and firefox 3.5.16 and zotero 2.09 it doesn't attach files to the item. The file is correctly renamed but never appears in zotero. Renaming works. Any hint?
  • Joscha
    Hi, there is a discussion about the linux problem in this forum thread. I think someone suggested a solution. I also recall that someone thought that it is a FF bug. I was hoping that FF4 solves this problem. Can anyone say something about that or try it?
  • Joscha
    There was a bug in the last version. 1.5.1 is back on mozilla addons and a new version is under review...

    Joscha


    New 1.5.x features:
    - batch processing of existing attachments (renames and moves all attachments of selected items according to Zofile rules)
    - allows the user to organize files into subfolders using zotero metadata
    - renaming of individual attachments
    - bug related to multiple zotero windows resolved
    - The zotfile icon was replaced by two right-click menu items
    - Support for Firefox 4 and Zotero 2.1 (including support of zotero as a tab)
  • Stitchz
    Hi all!

    I've been using Zotfile for the last weeks, to automatically rename PDFs to something useful (using metadata). Thanks Joscha for developing this great time-saving tool.

    I'm wondering: is it possible to define your own abbreviations of journal names?

    Cheers,
    Joao
  • Greg
    edited March 18, 2011
    Hi, as far as I know zotfile is using the the journal abbreviations you provided in zotero under 'Journal Abbr'. Accordingly, we can define your own abbreviation but they are not automatically applied to all articles from a certain Journal but instead are item based....

    Best.
  • Stitchz
    Thank for the help, Greg.

    Manually changing the 'Journal Abbr' field works, but doing that for each entry is definitely not the best way to do it.

    It does seem that there is some default Journal abbreviation list, taken from somewhere. Is it possible to edit that?
  • Stitchz
    OK, the 'Journal Abbr' field is automatically filled when I retrieve the PDF metadata.

    I guess this might be more complicated than what I initially thought :(
  • Joscha
    Greg is right. Stitchz, I agree that manually entering the 'Journal Abbr' field is not a good solution but I won't add any other. The Abbr is sometimes automatically added (from certain journal webpages, PDF metadata...) but zotero does not automatically add it from some database with default journal abbr, which would be a useful feature.
  • adamsmith
    no, Zotero shouldn't actually fill that field - the way this is going to be implemented eventually is that a style can call a list of journal abbreviations. Journals don't have universal abbreviations, unfortunately, so filling the journal abbr. field won't really do.
  • Stitchz
    Sounds good!
  • igw
    After upgrading to zotero 2.1, the zotfile entries appear twice in the context menu for me (doesn't happen in the tab view).
  • Joscha
    igw, I have uploaded a new version to solve this problem to mozilla but it takes some time until it passes the review. The bug occurs because of compatibility with zotero 2.0 so that the new version will not be compatible with older version of zotero (only 2.1+).
  • Joscha
    A new version with some bug fixed is under review...

    - Bug fix: 'Attach New File' now works with group libraries (always imports files because linked attachments do not exist in group libraries)
    - Bug fix: double zotfile menu entries removed (for zotero 2.1)
  • JonEP
    Updated version of zotfile is great, thanks for the fixes.

    I've just upgraded zotfile and moved to Firefox 4. The change in responsiveness is quite notable. Things are speedy now. One glitch: using Zotfile in FF4 moves, renames and attaches the file wonderfully. But it closes the Zotero pane. Upon re-opening zotero, the reference that has just been modified is not selected.

    Thanks for your work on zotfile, the sine qua non of my zotero workflow.
  • Joscha
    JonEP, can you give me some details about your OS etc? I don't experience this issue. Does anyone else has the same problem?
  • JonEP
    edited March 31, 2011
    Hi. I'm using 64 bit Windows 7. For the past few weeks, since the previous Zotfile update, after using zotfile the reference in question was no longer selected; the zotero library pane displayed the first reference in the sort order, and it was necessary to scroll back down to the zotfile-modified entry. The issue with zotero closing is new with this update. That's been my experience, perhaps it is attributable to some other factor...?
  • rartino
    Hi! Thanks for ZotFile, it is a great tool. I thought I'd share a tool I have composed for generating a custom Lookup Engine which opens a ZotFile stored file in your local file system. Since you can choose the path as you create the lookup engine, it works even if you have changed computer and the absolute paths are different.
    The tool is here: http://www.dewmill.com/zotero/
  • Joscha
    rartino, thanks for the tool. I am sure someone will find it useful!

    JonEP, I can not reproduce your problem and was going to see whether someone else reports the same issue so that I might be able to pin it down. Do you have the same issue for 'Attach new ..' and 'Rename Ex...'?
    Also, to which update are you referring? At https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zotfile/versions/ you can access old version but only those with 1.5.x. Do you have the same problem for all these versions?
  • JonEP
    Hi,
    Well, now I can't reproduce this... I will say that zotfile does take a while to process the file move and rename -- maybe 15 seconds.
    I'm using 1.5.7 on Zotero 2.1.2
    Thanks and sorry for the trouble.
  • SiGi
    Hi Joscha,

    I upgraded recently to Firefox 5 beta. Using the zotero branch I got Zotero working. But Firefox 5 beta has also deaktivated the zotfile plugin, due to incompatiblity. I use zotfile every day.

    Is it possible to make the zotfile plugin compatible to firefox5 beta (in the near future)?

    If not, I downgrade to Firefox 4 (That's not a problem for me).
  • Joscha
    Hi, so far ff or zotero updates never required changes to the actual zotfile code so that I am confident it will work. Here is what you have to do:

    1) download the .xpi file
    2) rename it to .zip and unpack
    3) open the file 'install.rdf'
    4) Change this line from
    em:maxVersion="4.0.*" />
    to
    em:maxVersion="5.0.*" />
    5) repack the the stuff (chrome and defaults folder, chrome.manifest and install.rdf
    6) rename the file to .xpi file
    7) install it (just drop the file on firefox)

    Let me know if that works so that I can make the change in the next official release. If you are having problems doing this, I can create a new test version...

    Best.
  • SiGi
    Hi Joscha,

    I tried it the way you have described. But after installing it (that works) I don't get the zotfile special menu selection for attaching or renaming of attachments (as I got before).

    SiGi
  • Joscha
    maybe the ff update actually requires some code changes. I will look into this when I find some time...

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