Upgrade Storagemanual citation entry CLUNKY
hi. i'm not sure whether this post "fits" in this category, but here goes:
i just spent an hour manually entering citations into zotero (these were the leftover ones that, for various reasons, i didn't already have in endnote). in every case that i have 'automatically' added citation information from a website into zotero, i've had to do quite a bit of manicuring, so these comments apply to very broadly...
there are three features (bugs?) of the interface that _really_ slow down manual entry in zotero:
1) getting "in" to each field takes at least two clicks of my mouse. the first click seems to highlight the field (or 'release' you from another field that you've been typing into) but doesn't allow you to alter anything, the second (or third!) click actually allows you to enter text. when you combine this with the tendency of the fields to change size based on how much text has just been entered, you end up with _lots_ of clicks (like, 4) to get into most of the fields.
2) the "tab" feature does not work in a consistent way. for example, tabbing into a new field does not allow you to edit that field--it just serves as the "first" click (see above). also, when you try to tab from the author first name to the next field, the 'tab' starts moving you around in a different zotero window (the 'collections' frame) altogether and messes totally unrelated stuff up...
3) the "autofill" feature in the fields that have it stays open sort of indefinitely until you click on another field. this means that if you want to proceed from one field with the 'autofill' feature enabled to the field below it (like "publication" down to "volume"), you have to click on a _third_ field to clear the autofill so that you can get access to the "volume" field ('cause it's covered up by the 'autofill').
thanks.
i just spent an hour manually entering citations into zotero (these were the leftover ones that, for various reasons, i didn't already have in endnote). in every case that i have 'automatically' added citation information from a website into zotero, i've had to do quite a bit of manicuring, so these comments apply to very broadly...
there are three features (bugs?) of the interface that _really_ slow down manual entry in zotero:
1) getting "in" to each field takes at least two clicks of my mouse. the first click seems to highlight the field (or 'release' you from another field that you've been typing into) but doesn't allow you to alter anything, the second (or third!) click actually allows you to enter text. when you combine this with the tendency of the fields to change size based on how much text has just been entered, you end up with _lots_ of clicks (like, 4) to get into most of the fields.
2) the "tab" feature does not work in a consistent way. for example, tabbing into a new field does not allow you to edit that field--it just serves as the "first" click (see above). also, when you try to tab from the author first name to the next field, the 'tab' starts moving you around in a different zotero window (the 'collections' frame) altogether and messes totally unrelated stuff up...
3) the "autofill" feature in the fields that have it stays open sort of indefinitely until you click on another field. this means that if you want to proceed from one field with the 'autofill' feature enabled to the field below it (like "publication" down to "volume"), you have to click on a _third_ field to clear the autofill so that you can get access to the "volume" field ('cause it's covered up by the 'autofill').
thanks.
That's on 2.0.9 on FF 3.6.14 and Ubuntu.
create a new item 'book.'
set the author field to 'last, first'
enter a value for 'last'
try to tab into the 'first' field
AND
add a value for publisher that makes the autofill come up and type exactly one of the autofill options (on my computer, autofill stays open even when you've completed one of its options). now, hit tab. on my machine, if i repeat these steps ten times in a row, about half the time i "lose" my cursor 'cause it leaves the frame. it's weird and maddening and i can't figure out how to make the behavior consistent!
Before going further, let's be sure of the answers to Simon's questions above. As no one else has reported this kind of behavior, the first place to look will be in the configuration of your local systems. Let us know your OS, Firefox version number, specific version of Zotero, and whether you have tried disabling themes and extensions in the browser, followed by a restart.
Win: ff 3.6.13/Zotero 2.1b6
i don't have any themes or extensions that are not zotero related on either machine...
as far as i can tell, zotero is operating "properly." the "clunkiness" i'm reporting is not, i don't think, the result of a malfunction.
let me describe it it slightly more detail, now that i've played around a little more...
each of the fields in the entry is capable of being in one of several "states" (there is the 'mouseover' state, during which it turns purple; there is the "click" state, during which it turns dark blue; there is the 'active' state, during which there is a blinking cursor and text can be entered; and there is the 'inactive' state...there are probably other states, too...)
the 'clunkiness' is resulting from the fact that often hitting tab after an entry has been made in field 'F' results in field F going to the 'mouseover' state. the next field below field F (let's call it field F+1) does _not_ become 'active', as it should. rather, field F stays in the 'mouseover' state and if you hit tab a second time, the cursor gets moved to some other _frame_ in zotero. the only way to get field F+1 into the 'active' state is to click on it either once or twice, depending on the 'state' of the previous field. believe me, the time this takes (and the frustration) adds up...
there is something weird about the way the 'mouseover' state is working. seriously. mess around with entering some data in a field and hitting tab and you will see what i mean. sometimes, everything works just right, but often lots of 'clicks' are needed to keep each subsequent field 'active' so that data can be entered...
i feel a little bad bringing this up, 'cause there are no doubt bigger fish to fry out there in zoteroland. but there it is...
thanks
Are you sure you don't have any Personas installed?
*actual colors will differ depending on several factors
i'm reluctant to change the version of zotero i'm using because i recently installed the trunk xpi because of problems i was having (per this thread: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/16673/script-not-responding-chromezoterocontentxpcomciteprocjs6754/#Item_28). can we hold off on that until it really seems necessary?
@adamsmith, when i tab into a field successfully (which doesn't always happen) the border of the field glows blue (but not the inside) and the existing text gets highlighted just as you say (if i type the text is erased, if i use an arrow the text stays). this--what you're describing--i call the 'active' state. the 'click' state is what happens when you mouseover a field and then hold the mousebutton down without releasing it. all the problems i'm having with tabbing etc have to do with the 'mouseover' state not turning into the 'click' state or 'active' state like i wish it did! the 'mouseover' state in one field somehow sometimes prevents other fields from being made active, if that makes any sense.
really?! no one can replicate what i describe above?!
http://www.4shared.com/video/Bp4YouW7/zotero_tab_glitch.html
http://www.4shared.com/video/ibRb6a0g/zotero_tab_glitch_part2.html
let me know if this doesn't work for some reason (youtube was being glitchy and i'm new to the "free file sharing" racket)
This is perfectly accidental, but the UI to the multilingual client behaves as you desire, with tab always pushing the cursor forward to the next field. I hadn't noticed that the behavior was different, but then I've been putting in much more time on building the variant than on research recently. Lots has changed in the mechanics of the UI for multilingual support, so it's not all that surprising that it behaves a little differently.
I wouldn't recommend that you adopt the multilingual client for a transient reason like this; it is an experimental product, coded almost entirely by one guy (me) without review. Probably not something you want to commit your life's work to at this point. If you do decide to try it as a stop-gap alternative, be sure to back up your data regularly, and to keep the old copies just in case the unexpected .
Maybe this could be fixed by 2.1 final? Is this a fix that could be brought in from multilingual relatively easily?
After repacking the jar file, I find that the interface is now behaving normally. A long delay before creating each new item for testing has also disappeared. All good news, but I wish I knew why it came right. What might have changed from merely restarting with a repacked jar file?
System:
OSX 10.6
Firefox 4b12
Zotero 2.1rc1
I'm using Zotero 3.0.7 in a pane in Firefox 13.0.1 on Windows 7 64-bit.
It's costing me a lot of time! thanks for anything you can do. Should I submit this as a feature request? Could I edit hte source and fix this myself? thanks! -Josh
If you don't have a field selected before, one click should allow you to start typing.
I did find 616 items in my trash. I'll work with the dataset for a while and see if that resolved the overall sluggish performance when doing manual editing. If not, I'll start a new thread.
I'll try the shift+return which I hadn't discovered in the tag entry window, and see if that speeds entry vs. mouse click.