I was delighted to see the Zotero integration, but when I had finally got through the video (several times, see other post), I was disappointed.
The only purpose of linking up the Zotero library seems to be so that you can view it on Hypernomicon screen. I have a separate screen for Zotero which is always open, so this is not useful to me.
There is no easy way to get the Zotero file into Hypernomicon. You have to go into the Zotero library (which you would not normally do), collect it, and then import it by hand. So that it is linked to the Zotero record in Hypernomicon which came from Zotero anyway.
There are a couple of things said about Zotero which I believe are not correct: you cannot have multiple entries for one Zotero item. However, you can and I use this feature, for instance to have two versions of the same documents. it is difficult in Zotero to find chapters from the same book. However, this is really not a problem in Zotero, you can just search for the book title and you get all relevant entries. Zotero also provides various other possibles such as notes, and subcollections.
*
The back-and-fro correction features which are emphasised heavily in the video are not so useful to me. Zotero is my core reference manager, and I cannot think would I would not use Zotero to correct Zotero entries. Yes, I expect Hyperion to update with Zotero since it is linked, but that is about it.
What would be immensely useful to me is
- automatic upload of selected zotero documents,
- with automatic recognition/creation of persons
- with automatic creation of works (simply the paper/book title)
- with automatic attachments of files.
The argument provided in the video for not supplying this feature annoyed me. I don't believe I use zotero in the way you suggest, as garbage paper collector. I cannot imagine why you would insist on re-coding existing information document by document. It would take me weeks to set it all up, before I could even start setting up arguments and positions and terms.
Sorry to sound grumpy, and again I realise I should not complain since you have supplied this software free of charge and out of the goodness of your heart - but I would like to use it sort of efficiently.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Thanks for your feedback and I'm sorry you were feeling frustration. It is actually possible to create a Hypernomicon work record for an existing Zotero document in a single operation; just right-click the entry in the Hypernomicon Bibliographic Manager window and select "Assign to work record". Then it creates a new work with the information already added, and it can recognize if there is an existing person record (works pretty well most of the time).
Another thing you might not be aware of is the "Autofill" button located in the "Bibliographic Data" subtab of the Works tab (see screenshot). This uses Crossref and Google Books to fill in information so you don't have to do it manually. I find Crossref to be pretty reliable in this regard. It will often find a link to the publisher version of the PDF and populate the URL field. I find myself getting PDFs that way because I would rather have the official version rather than whatever version Zotero finds. Both these features were in the videos but I understand it's hard to absorb every piece of information from watching those. Because of these features, I actually find myself almost never having to use Zotero itself (even though it is still my reference manager), I just use the Microsoft Word plug-in to generate the actual bibliography.
Once you have all the work records you want, importing PDFs to them hopefully shouldn't take that long (I certainly wouldn't think it would take weeks to do several hundred). For each document you would just have to drag-and-drop the pdf and select the existing work record, like I do in the video, which should take just a few seconds for each one.
I understand your disappointment that Hypernomicon doesn't simply import all the PDFs or entries to work records in bulk. There are several reasons for this. First of all, when Zotero automatically imports the PDF file for you, it is often not the best version. I think it is a better practice to find suitable PDF files manually. I used to be a copyeditor for an academic journal so I know that significant corrections often get made between acceptance of a paper and the final published version (though the authors themselves curiously still leave earlier drafts on their website to download, which gets indexed by google scholar and, therefore, is found by things like Zotero). The published version will also have correct page numbers, which is important when you are at the point where Zotero's bibliography-generation capabilities become important anyway. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you are in the habit of indiscriminately collecting and piling up papers, but that is sort of the built-in design philosophy of Zotero (in fact, that is the main thing that explains its success, the fact that it is so interoperable, but advantages in some areas naturally lead to disadvantages in others).
Another reason is that if you make importing PDF files extremely, extremely convenient to do, it removes the psychological incentive for the user to be selective about which ones you actually download. I don't always need PDF files for every entry in my reference manager. But if my software makes it extremely easy to have PDF files for every entry (e.g., so that I have to "opt out"), I'll find myself succumbing to the temptation of just letting it download a PDF for every entry. Eventually I may find that I need the PDF file to something in my library after all; at that point, instead of going to google and clicking the first download link I see, it will be worth my while to find the best version available, which no software is able to do automatically.
I was delighted to see the Zotero integration, but when I had finally got through the video (several times, see other post), I was disappointed.
The only purpose of linking up the Zotero library seems to be so that you can view it on Hypernomicon screen. I have a separate screen for Zotero which is always open, so this is not useful to me.
There is no easy way to get the Zotero file into Hypernomicon. You have to go into the Zotero library (which you would not normally do), collect it, and then import it by hand. So that it is linked to the Zotero record in Hypernomicon which came from Zotero anyway.
There are a couple of things said about Zotero which I believe are not correct:
you cannot have multiple entries for one Zotero item. However, you can and I use this feature, for instance to have two versions of the same documents.
it is difficult in Zotero to find chapters from the same book. However, this is really not a problem in Zotero, you can just search for the book title and you get all relevant entries. Zotero also provides various other possibles such as notes, and subcollections.
*
The back-and-fro correction features which are emphasised heavily in the video are not so useful to me. Zotero is my core reference manager, and I cannot think would I would not use Zotero to correct Zotero entries. Yes, I expect Hyperion to update with Zotero since it is linked, but that is about it.
What would be immensely useful to me is
- automatic upload of selected zotero documents,
- with automatic recognition/creation of persons
- with automatic creation of works (simply the paper/book title)
- with automatic attachments of files.
The argument provided in the video for not supplying this feature annoyed me. I don't believe I use zotero in the way you suggest, as garbage paper collector. I cannot imagine why you would insist on re-coding existing information document by document. It would take me weeks to set it all up, before I could even start setting up arguments and positions and terms.
Sorry to sound grumpy, and again I realise I should not complain since you have supplied this software free of charge and out of the goodness of your heart - but I would like to use it sort of efficiently.
Hi Inge,
Thanks for your feedback and I'm sorry you were feeling frustration. It is actually possible to create a Hypernomicon work record for an existing Zotero document in a single operation; just right-click the entry in the Hypernomicon Bibliographic Manager window and select "Assign to work record". Then it creates a new work with the information already added, and it can recognize if there is an existing person record (works pretty well most of the time).
Another thing you might not be aware of is the "Autofill" button located in the "Bibliographic Data" subtab of the Works tab (see screenshot). This uses Crossref and Google Books to fill in information so you don't have to do it manually. I find Crossref to be pretty reliable in this regard. It will often find a link to the publisher version of the PDF and populate the URL field. I find myself getting PDFs that way because I would rather have the official version rather than whatever version Zotero finds. Both these features were in the videos but I understand it's hard to absorb every piece of information from watching those. Because of these features, I actually find myself almost never having to use Zotero itself (even though it is still my reference manager), I just use the Microsoft Word plug-in to generate the actual bibliography.
Once you have all the work records you want, importing PDFs to them hopefully shouldn't take that long (I certainly wouldn't think it would take weeks to do several hundred). For each document you would just have to drag-and-drop the pdf and select the existing work record, like I do in the video, which should take just a few seconds for each one.
I understand your disappointment that Hypernomicon doesn't simply import all the PDFs or entries to work records in bulk. There are several reasons for this. First of all, when Zotero automatically imports the PDF file for you, it is often not the best version. I think it is a better practice to find suitable PDF files manually. I used to be a copyeditor for an academic journal so I know that significant corrections often get made between acceptance of a paper and the final published version (though the authors themselves curiously still leave earlier drafts on their website to download, which gets indexed by google scholar and, therefore, is found by things like Zotero). The published version will also have correct page numbers, which is important when you are at the point where Zotero's bibliography-generation capabilities become important anyway. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you are in the habit of indiscriminately collecting and piling up papers, but that is sort of the built-in design philosophy of Zotero (in fact, that is the main thing that explains its success, the fact that it is so interoperable, but advantages in some areas naturally lead to disadvantages in others).
Another reason is that if you make importing PDF files extremely, extremely convenient to do, it removes the psychological incentive for the user to be selective about which ones you actually download. I don't always need PDF files for every entry in my reference manager. But if my software makes it extremely easy to have PDF files for every entry (e.g., so that I have to "opt out"), I'll find myself succumbing to the temptation of just letting it download a PDF for every entry. Eventually I may find that I need the PDF file to something in my library after all; at that point, instead of going to google and clicking the first download link I see, it will be worth my while to find the best version available, which no software is able to do automatically.
Best,
Jason