mark

Interesting points @smarg19. I’m not sure whether this conversation belongs here or in a general workflow-esque forum but anyway… Workflow I come from a LaTeX tradition, only lately to markdown. Most of my library is in BibDesk, but I’ve started using Zotero recently because it’s ability to scrape refs is brilliant and is cross-platform. My writing can be for academic, technical, journalistic, or web-based end points. So i need to keep my options open for formats and csl styles. The workflow i’ve gravitated to is: Write in MMD/pandoc Generally write into Scrivener Export to LaTeX, .pdf, .odt, .doc, .md via pandoc or MMD+LaTeX, which calls a mybiblio.bib BibDesk file for bibliography This gives me the ability to cite while writing and let pandoc/LaTeX sort out the reference style. But it only works semi-fluidly in BibDesk at the moment because Zotero doesn’t export MMD or pandoc citekeys or MMD referenced links for the bibliography. The zotero-better-bibtex (ZBB) add-on for Zotero by Emiliano heyns (friflaj) [2] does come tantilisingly close in exporting LaTeX citekeys and BibTex bibliographies from Zotero. I’ve tried to hack around with a fork of ZBB but the json is a bit too much for me at the moment. The need for citekeys I must admit I hadn’t thought about doing away with citekeys althogether. I take the very good points you make @smarg19. The problem seems to me (as you also say) is stable citekeys in the database that ensure the reference is maintained between citekey int he document and the bibliodb in Zotero. The developers at Zotero seem to have been asked for this type of functionality for a long time but avoided it because of the points you make. One could circumnavigate the citekey integrity issue by dumping a snapshot of the bibliodb at the time of writing ones document – ZBB can do this. This would preserve the citekey-bibliodb links. You might say this is just the same as dispensing with citekeys altogether and doing what ZotQuery does now. Well sort of, but citekey-less writing prevents the ability to do good stuff with csl and automatically generate new bibliographies from the text if citekeys are dropped/added from the body text. I have thought about how to modify my workflow to avoid citekeys. But the need for ‘live citations’ (as @kithairon puts it) is a killer for me. The availability of citekeys in Zotero would go someway to achieving a ‘scholarly markdown’ [3]. So, yes for me – and it sounds like @kithairon as well as other who at the moment are not using Alfred/ZotQuery – citekeys are pretty important. Maybe provide the option for people to use citekeys if they like. If the citekey generated in the db is stable – and the user knows this needs to be case – there should no problem. You may be aware of these Zotero Firefox extensions as examples of the sort of functionality I’m getting at. ZBB [2] has the ability to specify citekey format and cite command – but the cite command is slightly inflexible, while zotero-autoexport [4] exports the library to different filetypes, but with citekey inflexibility. I’d be happy to work with you /others to get the range of citekey options / bibliodb exports correct. But without inflating the workflow to levels that mae ZotQuery difficult to manage. You’ve done so much of the heavy-lifting here already, it’s really impressive. I bought the powerpack on the basis of ZotQuery alone. best wishes Mark Sources http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/3708-zotquery-an-alfred-workflow-for-zotero/page-6 https://github.com/friflaj/zotero-better-bibtex http://blog.martinfenner.org/2013/06/19/citations-in-scholarly-markdown/ http://rokdd.de/b/zotero-autoexport

Stephen, upgraded to 5.5 and now exports work fine. Thanks to you and @deanishe, but esp you for putting the workflow together. PS I'm new to Alfred. If I wanted to modify ZotQuery to export markdown [#citekey] and pandoc [@citekey] links where would I look? Within ZotQuery or is this part of Zotero prefs? best wishes Mark

Hello, ZotQuery export problems... Running OSX 10.8.5, Alfred 2 and ZotQuery 5.3. z:config seemed to go ok and I was not prompted to install any python modules. After setup found ZotQuery not exporting citations and references to clipboard. So attempted to troubleshoot. * Trying to troubleshoot by following posts #101 to #110 at [2]. * Found that python module requests wasn’t installed (as in [2] #104). Ruddy$ python action_export-citation.py "2S94Z4BH" Traceback (most recent call last): File "action_export-citation.py", line 6, in <module> from dependencies.pyzotero import zotero File "/Users/markruddy/Library/Application Support/Alfred 2/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.BFFC5A57-46F4-460C-B476-17F66C339C09/dependencies/pyzotero/zotero.py", line 31, in <module> import requests ImportError: No module named requests * ‘requests’ was installed successfully using: easy_install requests * Still couldn’t export from ZotQuery. * New terminal error: Ruddy$ python action_export-citation.py "2S94Z4BH" Traceback (most recent call last): File "action_export-citation.py", line 6, in <module> from dependencies.pyzotero import zotero File "/Users/markruddy/Library/Application Support/Alfred 2/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.BFFC5A57-46F4-460C-B476-17F66C339C09/dependencies/pyzotero/zotero.py", line 33, in <module> import feedparser ImportError: No module named feedparser * Attempted to install python module feedparser using: python config_install-python-dependencies.py * This produced a ZotQuery box promt to install basic python modules. But clicking ‘install’ had no effect, still get: ImportError: No module named feedparser ...and am still unable to export from ZotQuery. Appreciate any help thanks Mark Sources http://hackademic.postach.io/zotquery-an-alfred-workflow-for-zotero#fnref:1 http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/3708-zotquery-an-alfred-workflow-for-zotero/page-6