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Zotero 6

zotero.org

31–40 of 197 posts

Re: Zotero 6

#31

I used Zotero quite a bit in the past, the thing that ultimately drove me away is that when synchronizing you couldn't easily access the PDFs just via the filesystem. I use a nextcloud and also wanted to access PDFs from devices without Zotero installed and this turned out to be a pain at the time. Is this possible with more recent Zotero versions? Is the sync still cumbersome with a zotero account + self-hosted webd…

You can still access the pdf file via the file system by right clicking on the item and 'show file'. The files names may not be user friendly though.

Re: Zotero 6

#32

Zotero is one of those pieces of open source software that has really improved my life. I first discovered it as a teenager and it revolutionised writing papers and managing sources. Sadly I don’t find myself using it that much in my job. I always got a kick out of introducing it to my friends in the humanities and blowing their minds. I have no idea how anyone writes papers without zotero or another similar tool. Ke…

Agreed.

What really blows my mind is how many of my academically inclined friends manage (and cloud sync) a big library of pirated papers using a rival piece of software owned by a major rights holder of said pirated papers. I mean... there's a good chance nothing will come of it, but it just seems like tempting fate. Zotero isn't just good enough, it's so good that the choice is completely trivial IMO!

Thanks, Zotero :)

Re: Zotero 6

#33
How good is Zotero as a bookmark manager similar to Pinboard.in or Raindrop.io? Both have a paid feature that stores a permanent copy of a site, but these are stored only on their servers, and Pinboard's archive download feature never worked for me.

Re: Zotero 6

#34

I cannot tell from the changelog for this or the previous version whether Zotero has expanded its metadata and formatting capabilities to better support legal citations, so I guess I will stick to the Jurism[0] fork for now. If anybody knows of a better way to make this work in Zotero directly, I'm all ears. [0]: https://juris-m.github.io/

It'd be so fantastic if the Zotero team could consider integrating their changes. I know that many probably won't necessarily need its advanced futures, but I see no risk of confusion as it's easy to use and mostly hidden in the "case" category.

Re: Zotero 6

#35

The only thing holding me back from using Zotero is that, afaik, you need to use a Zotero account to reliably sync metadata between devices (the Zotero Data Server isn't supported). I wish it was easier to self-host; there's no reason for me to interact with their servers. It's always a disappointment to find otherwise great open source projects that have key components that deny privacy.

Zotero supports WebDAV and I was using it with box.com without any troubles for years. What lured me to switch to Zotero's sync and cloud storage in the end, though, is the group library function.

Re: Zotero 6

#37

The only thing holding me back from using Zotero is that, afaik, you need to use a Zotero account to reliably sync metadata between devices (the Zotero Data Server isn't supported). I wish it was easier to self-host; there's no reason for me to interact with their servers. It's always a disappointment to find otherwise great open source projects that have key components that deny privacy.

Can you export/import the data to/from devices?

Re: Zotero 6

#40

The only thing holding me back from using Zotero is that, afaik, you need to use a Zotero account to reliably sync metadata between devices (the Zotero Data Server isn't supported). I wish it was easier to self-host; there's no reason for me to interact with their servers. It's always a disappointment to find otherwise great open source projects that have key components that deny privacy.

Hint: You can sync the library for free by making an account. You need the "Zotero Storage" only if you want to sync the files as well. However, you can simply sync the folder ~/Zotero/storage using SyncThing. You could also use WebDAV, but SyncThing is just so much easier (set up & forget). The IDs/Metadata is consistent among syncs. :)

Of course, that doesn't resolve the privacy concerns, but personally idc about that.

edit: It seems like you might be able to sync everything by just putting ~/Zotero/ into something like SyncThing, avoiding the Zotero servers. But you'd probably have to be careful only opening the app after syncing has been completed. I haven't tested this though.

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