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yeah so I just reinstalled Zotero and imported my Mendeley library. It does that, and it can actually look up metadata from pdfs. But: It can NOT update alread

by zwaps 8y ago

yeah so I just reinstalled Zotero and imported my Mendeley library. It does that, and it can actually look up metadata from pdfs. But: It can NOT update already existing entries from such a lookup. You have to delete the pdf and re-import. Why? No reason. It's this sort of really bad usability decision that makes Zotero just not very good imo.

tonyg 8y ago
I'm not sure what feature exactly you're missing, but are you aware of the "Rename file from parent metadata" option you get when right clicking on a PDF in the list? Perhaps that does what you need. If not, with Zotero you have a chance of getting a missing feature added. Not so with the closed-source Mendeley. Especially now they have started doing user-hostile lock-in stuff like gratuitously encrypting users' data, making it no longer accessible to the user (see downthread). With Zotero, in principle you could hack together something using `bash` and `sqlite3` that batch-updated documents; you may not even need to look at the source code to the official app. It's ad-hoc munging like that that Mendeley has recently gone out of its way to prevent, stopping people from working effectively with their own data.
- zwaps 8y ago
  Zotero can look up metadata if you add a PDF to your library Zotero can not update metadata for a PDF you already have in your library Hence, adding an existing library means you have to do it manually for each pdf This is bad design, because the functionality exists, but it's implemented in a way that makes everything complicated for no reason at all. Why disable the "lookup metadata" button for a pdf which is already in a library? WHYYYYY
  - tonyg 8y ago
    I see! Yes, that's not great.
dstillman 8y ago
It's not a usability decision — it's just one feature that hasn't yet been implemented [1]. Updating metadata is more complicated than creating a new item, because you have to deal with the existing metadata somehow. (Mendeley just overwrites the existing item, often with incorrect data, which we don't consider acceptable.) Disclosure: Zotero developer [1] https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1515 https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1515
- hyeonwho4 8y ago
  I really love the "duplicate finder" and its ability to pick and choose metadata to keep. Perhaps just create a duplicate item and deal with merge conflicts later?

by zwaps 8y ago

tonyg 8y ago

I'm not sure what feature exactly you're missing, but are you aware of the "Rename file from parent metadata" option you get when right clicking on a PDF in the list? Perhaps that does what you need. If not, with Zotero you have a chance of getting a missing feature added. Not so with the closed-source Mendeley. Especially now they have started doing user-hostile lock-in stuff like gratuitously encrypting users' data, making it no longer accessible to the user (see downthread). With Zotero, in principle you could hack together something using `bash` and `sqlite3` that batch-updated documents; you may not even need to look at the source code to the official app. It's ad-hoc munging like that that Mendeley has recently gone out of its way to prevent, stopping people from working effectively with their own data.

zwaps 8y ago
Zotero can look up metadata if you add a PDF to your library Zotero can not update metadata for a PDF you already have in your library Hence, adding an existing library means you have to do it manually for each pdf This is bad design, because the functionality exists, but it's implemented in a way that makes everything complicated for no reason at all. Why disable the "lookup metadata" button for a pdf which is already in a library? WHYYYYY
- tonyg 8y ago
  I see! Yes, that's not great.

dstillman 8y ago

It's not a usability decision — it's just one feature that hasn't yet been implemented [1]. Updating metadata is more complicated than creating a new item, because you have to deal with the existing metadata somehow. (Mendeley just overwrites the existing item, often with incorrect data, which we don't consider acceptable.) Disclosure: Zotero developer [1] https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1515 https://github.com/zotero/zotero/issues/1515

hyeonwho4 8y ago
I really love the "duplicate finder" and its ability to pick and choose metadata to keep. Perhaps just create a duplicate item and deal with merge conflicts later?