jlegewie/zotfile

Keeping a pristine copy pdf alongside one annotated

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#226 opened on May 1, 2016

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 (10 comments) (3 reactions) (0 assignees)Java (3,511 stars) (276 forks)batch import
enhancementhelp wanted

Description

I am trying to use ZotFile to sync pdfs I annotate across devices (I use Zotero sync). I thought this would be solved by the "Save copy of annotated file with suffix", however, there are two small issues in that are making this difficult:

  1. (less important) after annotating the pdf for the first time I get the file with "_annotated" added into my Zotero database. Up to here, this is the behavior I expected. However, if I later want to send the item again to the tablet to make more annotations, Zofile asks me to confirm I want to send two files. It would be nice if I could let Zotfile know that, when existing, the file with "_annotated" is the one ment to be sent.

I can work around this by unfolding the entry and select the specific file to send to the tablet. However, being able to select mant different entries and having Zotfile automatically deciding which file to send would be nice.

  1. If I do send the annotated file to the tablet and do more annotations, when I pull the file from the tablet, I get a third file now, with "_annotated_annotated" in it. I would like instead, that Zotfile realizes that the "_annotated" is already there, and that it can then overwrite the corresponding copy.

Is there a way to get Zotfile to work like this? Else, I guess this is a feature request.

Thanks for making Zotfile!!

Contributor guide

Tech stack
javajavascript
Domain
tooling
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
mostly clear
Prerequisites
basic understanding of Zotero plugin developmentfamiliarity with file handling in Java/JavaScript
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
30
Research direction
The issue requests two enhancements: (1) when sending a file to tablet, prefer the annotated copy if it exists; (2) when pulling back, overwrite the existing annotated copy instead of creating a new version. The code responsible for file naming and transfer logic (likely in Java classes for ZotFile) should be examined. Look for how the ' annotated' suffix is appended and the synchronization logic. The current behavior creates multiple annotations on repeated syncs. A possible solution involves detecting existing annotated files and overwriting or selecting them appropriately.