New plugin: ZoteroQuickLook

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  • There are updated instructions here, but they only apply to 2.1b6/the current trunk. (Tab support in 2.1b5 was preliminary.)
  • There is a new version of ZoteroQuickLook available at

    http://www.tkk.fi/u/mronkko/zoteroquicklook.xpi

    This version fixes the Zotero as a tab issue. Once I have a few people confirming that this works for them, I will publish it through Mozilla Extensions directory.

    The current overlays are

    overlay chrome://browser/content/browser.xul chrome://zoteroquicklook/content/overlay.xul
    overlay chrome://zotero/content/zoteroPane.xul chrome://zoteroquicklook/content/overlay.xul
    overlay chrome://zotero/content/integration/addCitationDialog.xul chrome://zoteroquicklook/content/addCitationDialogOverlay.xul


    I assume that this combination will work in all current Zotero versions.
  • Thank you. For me the context menu works but not the spacebar (in tab mode). 2.1rc2.
  • same here. Context menu works but spacebar doesn't...
    Mac OS X 10.6.4, FF 4, Zotero 2.1rc2
  • How did I miss that? There is now a new version where spacebar works again.

    http://www.tkk.fi/u/mronkko/zoteroquicklook.xpi
  • Thanks.

    I just realized that in e.g. Mail the QuickLook window can be dismissed with Esc. Would be great to have the same in ZoteroQuickLook.
  • edited March 13, 2011
    Closing with esc implemented. A new version is available at the same address

    http://www.tkk.fi/u/mronkko/zoteroquicklook.xpi

    If you like the plugin, I would appreciate having more ratings and reviews at the Mozilla extensions directory

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zoteroquicklook/
  • Thanks for nice reviews!

    There is now a new version available at
    http://www.tkk.fi/u/mronkko/zoteroquicklook.xpi

    This will be version 1.2

    The changes from 1.1 include
    -Support for Zotero 2.1
    -Small code optimizations
    -The plugin now shows also notes, not only attachments (thanks adamsmith for the suggestion of this feature)
    -The plugin has an automatic browse mode

    The browse mode feature helps when browsing a list of articles where some articles have notes or attachments and some don't. Browse mode is activated by moving up and down an article list using the arrow keys. When browse mode is active, quicklook is opened every time the active item is changes. Previously it needed to be manually activated after being closed by choosing an item that did not have an attachment. Browse mode is stopped by closing the quicklook window.

    Testing is more than welcome again. I think that this is quite close to a public release if no major bugs are found.
  • yay! I won't be able to test for a while, but very excited about the note feature.
  • Notes in ZQL – very nice! Thanks for a good idea and the speedy implementation of the good idea!
  • edited March 15, 2011
    Thanks very much for your work. I have installed ZQL, but cannot get it to work, either with the space bar or the shortcut menu. I am on Windows 7 (64 bit) and Firefox 3.6 and Zotero 2.09. I have tried with maComfort and irfanview, changing the customviewcommand setting in each case. Might this be a 64 bit Windows problem? Both maComfort and irfanview work other than in conjunction with ZQL.

    Thanks, Tom
  • bentle: It is a 64 bit Windows problem. ZoteroQuickLook looks for MaComfort at C:/Program Files/MaComfort, but on 64bit Windows the path is C:/Program Files (64)/MaComfort

    A quick fix is to copy the MaComfort folder to Program Files. Alternatively you can wait a day or two for me to fix the path in the ZoteroQuickLook code
  • There is a new development version available for testing. Changes include:
    -Added cleaning of cached notes
    -Fixed a bug where MaComfort was not found on 64bit Windows 7
    -Increased the version number from 1.2

    There is also a new demo video available at
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2qt9H5G5KQ

    Thank you for positive reviews at the mozilla extensions directory page.
  • Thanks very much for the speedy fix to the 64bit Windows 7 problem. It works great. It's a terrific addition to Zotero! I look forward to the version in which the browse function works in Windows, but am very happy for now!

    Thanks!
    Tom
  • bentle: Some people have had performance problems with Windows version of ZoteroQuickLook. If the performance is good on your system, would you like to share the following details:
    -how long it takes to open the quicklook window?
    -which PDF reader do you use?

    Even better would be a short screen recording on ZoteroQuickLook in action on your system.

    You can email these to me at mikko.ronkko@aalto.fi
  • Just hand-timing it, it seems that it takes from 2 to 4 second for a quicklook window to open the first time, and then less than 2 seconds after that. I use Acrobat X as a pdf reader.

    I'm afraid I don't have the capacity to post a screen recording, but I can say it works quite well. I use it a bit less than I thought I might just because the browse function does not work on Windows.

    Thanks,
    Tom
  • First off let me say that I love Zotero QuickLook (Z-QL.) It saves me quite a bit of time and is just fun to use. I just performed a mass update which updated all of the Zotero elements and now Z-QL seems to be crashing Firefox. I can QuickLook an item in the Zotero list just fine. However, after QL-ing a pdf I try to two finger scroll down the list of items and firefox goes all beachball on me.

    I annoyingly repeated this several times. I disabled Z-QL and am now able to perform a 2 finger scroll with seemingly no issues.

    White Macbook 2007 OS X 10.6.7
    Firefox 3.6.13, Zotero 2.1.1, Zotero QuickLook 1.2.0
  • FF is at 3.6.15 - unlikely to change anything, but you should update nevertheless
  • chbr14: For some reason I did not receive an email notification of a new post. Please let me know if this is still and issue and I will see how it can be fixed.
  • There is now a new testing version available. This version enables QuickLook from Word 2011 on Mac. (Also earlier versions of word might work, but I have not tested them.)

    How to use:
    -Move cursor on a citation
    -Press ctrl+option+q to open the items in this citation in quicklook
    -Press ctrl+option+q again to close the quicklook dialog

    How to install:
    -Download the plugin from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/694399/zoteroquicklook.xpi
    -Unzip the zoteroquicklook.xpi
    -Copy the file ZoteroQuickLook\coq.scpt to ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Word Script Menu Items/Zotero/
    -Install zoteroquicklook.xpi with Firefox
    -Restart firefox. There is no need to restart Word.

    I would assume that similar functionality would be quite easy to implement also for OpenOffice.
  • Hi, I am looking for a light alternative to maComfort for Windows and found Sumatra PDF, which is a very light PDF viewer for Windows. It accepts a PDF file path/name as command line argument - I tested it.

    However, I can't get it to work with ZQL. I changed the about:config preference to the path+name of the Sumatra PDF executable (tried with and without quotes), but when I hit the space bar i Zotero, nothing happens. I briefly tried maComfort and it worked, but I uninstalled maComfort again because I didn#t like it.
  • I will test Sumatra PDF to see if I can get it to work.
  • There is a bug in ZoteroQuickLook that prevented the custom view command from working.

    The bug can be fixed by changing the content of zoteroquicklook.js, openQuickLook function to the following

    [code]
    openQuickLook: function(items) {

    Zotero.debug("ZoteroQuickLook opening viewer",3);

    var args=Array();

    // A boolean indicating if we have notes this far.
    var notesFound=false;

    //Combine all filenames into an array

    for (item in items){

    if (items[item].isAttachment() || items[item].isNote()){
    if(items[item].isNote() &! notesFound){
    this.cleanOldNotes();
    notesFound=true;
    }
    this.pushItemToArgs(args,items[item]);
    }
    //See if it has children and add them. Best attachment comes first.
    //Notes come after attachments

    else{

    var attachments=items[item].getAttachments(false);
    var notes=items[item].getNotes(false);

    if(notes!==false &! notesFound){
    this.cleanOldNotes();
    notesFound=true;
    }

    children=new Array();
    if(attachments!=false) children=children.concat(attachments);
    if(notes!=false) children=children.concat(notes);

    for (childID in children){
    var child = Zotero.Items.get(children[childID]);
    this.pushItemToArgs(args,child);
    }

    }
    }


    ///If no files are specified, exit. Custom view commmand does not have base arguments but other view commands have one base argument.

    if (args.length==0 ) {
    Zotero.debug("ZoteroQuickLook thinks that no files are selected",3);
    return false;
    }

    if(this.viewerBaseArguments!=null){
    args=this.viewerBaseArguments.slice().concat(args);
    }

    var argsString="";

    for( i in args){
    argsString=argsString+" "+args[i];
    }

    //Write to debug what is called
    Zotero.debug("ZoteroQuickLook calling a shell command: " +this.viewerExecutable.path +argsString,3);

    Zotero.ZoteroQuickLook.proc = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/process/util;1"].
    createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsIProcess);

    Zotero.ZoteroQuickLook.proc.init(Zotero.ZoteroQuickLook.viewerExecutable);

    Zotero.ZoteroQuickLook.proc.run(false, args, args.length);

    return true;
    }
    [/code]

    I will include this bug fix in the next release of ZoteroQuickLook
  • Wow, thanks for the quick help!
    Unfortunately, even after changing the code, I still can't get it to work. But maybe I didn't do it correctly, I'll best wait for the next release and then try again.
  • Hey, great add-on!
    Could you make a version for the Zotero Standalone? It looks like it is possible, and wouldn't take too much extra coding. Thanks!
  • he's at it already:
    http://groups.google.com/group/zotero-dev/browse_thread/thread/e8072da272180c7f
  • Ha, very cool. Looks like he started this morning.
  • I will try to have time to take a look at Zotero standalone compatibility over the weekend. It should not be too hard.
  • Here is a quick preview of an upcoming feature in ZoteroQuickLook. The quicklook dialog can now be activated directly from citations through the word processor plugin.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVe4fKY_Fe4
  • There is a new version available for testing at https://github.com/mronkko/ZoteroQuickLook

    This version includes the following changes
    -Bug fix to a problem affecting custom view command
    -Support for Zotero Standalone
    -Support for QuickFormat (use cmd+y to open quicklook)
    -QuickLook from Word document using the Word script menu. Supported only on Mac and Word 2008 / 2011 for now. See the video in the previous post for demo.

    There are still issues with the QuickFormat support.
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