Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zotero for Android available for beta tests

forums.zotero.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#71

Post by manquer »

Takennickname wrote: post #70
contrarian1234 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(and it doesn't seem to be opensource)

So what? What open source software have you published?

Expecting(hoping?) software you run on your hardware to be libre shouldn’t be dependent on your abilities to develop and publish software , open source or otherwise.

Not everyone, even in this forum is a software developer, and out of those who are - most work for an organization therefore don’t own what they develop and have limited influence to choose licensing of their work product.

At best we can perhaps maybe point out someone’s hypocrisy if they already develop software who’s licensing is under their control(I.e. not paid for by someone) and is also closed source and at the same time demand for open source from others . Even then I don’t think it is a good sentiment to have .

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#72

Post by juujian »

layer8 wrote: post #64
juujian wrote: post #53

Just took it for a spin. Interface looks decent. I love that I'm able to invert colors aka PDF dark mode cheat. But I don't seem to be able to add annotations to a PDF and sync that back to my desktop, which is a bummer. I'm sure that will work in the future, and then I will finally be able to read and annotate papers on a tablet. Okular set a high bar for what a good PDF Reader can do, this is surprisingly decent. T…

Librera can automatically crop whitespace. And Adobe Reader has Fit Visible (Ctrl+3), which most of the time is good enough.

Well, for now I can't even figure out where Zotero stores the PDF locally on Android... Wish there was a button to open the PDF externally. I appreciate that there is a built in reader though.

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#73

Post by beepbooptheory »

jampekka wrote: post #37
thaumasiotes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the ones who bought the cheapest phone they could find contribute market share only for free apps. This can't really be true; it would imply that the actual value of all phone apps is zero, and the only reason people pay for them is that they need to get rid of some cash.

If someting isn't paid for it has no value?

A very smart man a while back proposed that any given thing has two kinds of value: use value and exchange value. One does not necessarily overlap with the other, yet both can totally capture a things "value" depending on where you start.

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#74

Post by bluish29 »

TontonNestor wrote: post #67
boramalper wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Zotero already self-hosted?

I've installed the app linked in TFA and it immediately asked me to sign in or sign up without any option to configure my own server address. But since it's still a beta version, the custom server/local only options are probably not implemented yet.

You have to modify that hard coded servers in the clients to your data server and re- compile them.

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#76

Post by josephcsible »

Takennickname wrote: post #70
contrarian1234 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(and it doesn't seem to be opensource)

So what? What open source software have you published?

It's not hypocritical for someone who's never published any software to say that. It'd only be hypocritical for someone who's published non-open-source software to.

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#78

Post by xattt »

layer8 wrote: post #50
xattt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: the iPad/iOS Zotero reading experience is worlds apart from the PDF.js reader in Windows clients.

In which direction? (I don’t use either.)

The iOS version uses PDFkit, so the options for viewing and annotation are much better. It drives me bonkers that I can’t do single-page view on the desktop app.

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#79

Post by windexh8er »

dagmx wrote: post #43
carlosjobim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android users don't want to pay for apps, that's why they get lower priority in general.

Add to that, there’s a huge variance in device hardware, form factors, OS versions and API support for Android. As well as poorer UI APIs and harder to integrate C code (important to sharing cross platform libs). The ROI on delivering a *good* experience for Android users is really low.

This is an old trope that's not nearly as relevant as you seem to imply. It is also the same problem Apple would have with laptop and desktops, but is really not an issue.

I, personally, believe that the platform has very little to do with that disparity of revenue at this point - but it is directly related to the demographic purchasing the phone. Android phones are often much easier to acquire with fewer financial resources. That is not the market Apple has targeted or has wanted to cater to in their quest to position themselves as a more premium brand. In some cases they may be and in others it is a marketing facade that people have bought into.

But, the reality is to deliver a good experience on Android isn't any harder than that same experience on Apple. Is it as financially rewarding? Probably not, again due to the difference in overall demographic of users. But I think it has very little to do with technical limitations or variances as described.

Re: Zotero for Android available for beta tests

#80

Post by evolve2k »

kergonath wrote: post #59
xattt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: the iPad/iOS Zotero reading experience is worlds apart from the PDF.js reader in Windows clients.

An iPad is the ideal form factor for this kind of things. Reading and annotating PDFs on that thing is a joy.

I’m considering getting an iPad mini to read & annotate within Zotero.

Anyone have experience of using an iPad mini for this. Is the form factor do-able or really too small?

I like that I could read lying down with one hand, which I can’t achieve with a full-sized iPad.

Post reply on HN