lutefish

I want to thank deanishe for his ONGOING support of an Alfred workflow for Zotero, -a tool he doesn't use at all-. He redeveloped an abandoned Alfred/Zotero workflow 4 years ago to make ZotHero. His generosity to the academic Alfred community is astonishing. I encourage everyone to buy him a beer

Many thanks for the suggestion. That option was already set, and changing Run Behaviour to various settings didn't change things. But, again, thanks - it was worth a try.

Mpco - I just downloaded the most recent release - thanks so much for keeping this up to date. I started seeing very slow searches in DT3b3 and still in DT3b4. It's not timing out. I tried running the script with logging enabled, and there's fully 7 or so seconds between when I enter text and results are returned: [11:23:10.768] Logging Started... [11:23:17.517] DEVONthink Search[Script Filter] Queuing argument 'c' [11:23:18.774] DEVONthink Search[Script Filter] Queuing argument 'chancery' [11:23:24.083] DEVONthink Search[Script Filter] Script with argv 'chancery' finished Thanks for a brilliant workflow - just wanted to draw your attention to the issue.

It does. Though, I think the workflow was updated recently? It's suddenly running quite slowly for me.

Mpco - Brilliant. That did the trick, and it works as expected now. Thank you!

Mpco - many thanks. When I run the script you posted directly, it works fine, and takes only a few seconds for results to appear in the Script Editor window. But, running dnt directly still just fails silently with a time-out. Running dnd and choosing a database and searching works fine. Is it connected somehow to dnt coming after dnd, rather than being a toplevel option somehow?

It freezes - dnt logs this: Starting debug for 'DEVONthink Pro Search' [2018-12-04 09:12:50][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 's' [2018-12-04 09:12:50][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'so' [2018-12-04 09:12:50][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sot' [2018-12-04 09:12:50][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'soth' [2018-12-04 09:12:50][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sothe' [2018-12-04 09:12:50][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sotheo' [2018-12-04 09:12:51][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sothe' [2018-12-04 09:12:51][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sothew' [2018-12-04 09:12:51][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sothewo' [2018-12-04 09:12:51][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sothewor' [2018-12-04 09:12:51][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sothewort' [2018-12-04 09:12:52][input.scriptfilter] Queuing argument 'sotheworth' I have some large databases (>3 gigs) containing indexed folders themselves pointing to gigabytes of files, and I think that's where the script is failing, as a dnd search of that particular database also times out.

Many thanks for sharing. I'm having an issue where the general dnt search (of DT Pro) isn't responding or returning any results, whereas a dnd search of a particular database works fine.

Just moved from years of being a devout Evernote user to DevonThink, and this workflow made that decision much easier. Cheers!

That did the trick. Seriously - is there some way I can compensate you in gratitude? Or, alternately, some way I can contribute to the larger Alfred community, as a thanks? You've made life better for the tiny number of academic users who use both (Alfred, Zotero), and have my profoundest thanks.

Another issue - I can't open attachments. This may be because I store attachments in a different directory than I store the Zotero database (which uses the default data directory ~/Zotero/) Disabled the other version, so I'm getting the proper results. No issues configuring citation styles or accessing the database successfully. But when trying to shift-enter to view attachments, the script fails (silently from the user perspective). Debug shows: "[ERROR: action.script] The file /Users/lutefish/Box Sync/AlfredSync/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.3E466815-B937-4C74-B823-C1F211FCAE3D/attachments:2017/Fisher Chancery Standard Written English.pdf does not exist." Is there anyway to specify a distinct attachment top-level directory from database directory - what Zotero calls "Linked Attachment Base Directory" vs "Data Directory Location"?

OK. Downloaded new, ran delcache and I'm now getting duplicate results returned in the Alfred display. Looking at the debug logs I see "[index] 2 result(s) for u'1975'" but the workflow displays a list of item 1, item 2, item 2, item 1. Gonna be away again through the holidays, but we're up to two round of beers on me. Cheers.

@deanishe @Damoeire @dfay Jeez - I step away for a few days, and this! @deanishe - running it, first thing I see when searching is an error - ValueError: year=1854 is before 1900; the datetime strftime() methods require year >= 1900 I have lots of pre 1900, even free 1800 entries in my Zotero library. The error doesn't stop the script from returning items with year values before that time, or from opening the attachments

Hi, all - I wish I had the time and the expertise to do more with this, but I don't. My hand-hacked version of the script works for me (for now), so I've been very reluctant to change anything, and my tech skills are shaky enough that I worry about even fiddling around with the subsequent versions that @deanishe has very generously assembled, in case I break what's not broken. All I use zotquery for is to search the Zotero database (not even by field - just the "general query" default works fine, and the rest is just added and rather unnecessary complexity), and then either 1) opening the linked attachment, 2) copying the citation (either full or short) to the clipboard, and very occasionally 3) opening Zotero to that particular item. May thanks to everyone who has spent time and effort on this (and beers all around sounds like a solid plan), but this may be it for this workflow for a while.

I’m away from my computer but my hunch is the issue may be with where zotquery stores its duplicate of the library; moving from the old Alfred 2 preferences paths to Alfred 3 required some changes to that part of the workflow. Zotero also changed default path in v.5, but I don’t think that’s the issue here.

I fear there may be some mix-ups going on here. I think @smarg19 started a big re-write, some of which may be in the GitHub repository, but then didn't finish. @deanishe - the top-level zotquery file was my hacked-together version of the already-built workflow. All the SQL changes I made are commented there with #mnf I have no trouble running Zotero and zotquery at the same time, though perhaps when first configuring zotquery it can't be open.

Hi, all - I've merged the changes @deanishe made to the GitHub repository. Hopefully this addresses some of the issues. Since I hadn't made any changes to the workflow in the source directory there, only to the zotquery.py file one level higher than that on GitHub, it's possible the new fixes are better than my cludgy attempts to just get the script to stop making SQL queries to tables that didn't exist any more in Zotero 5. Extra thanks to @deanishe for taking on a workflow to access software he doesn't use.

Have you checked the get pip edit (somewhere above) has been made? I seem to recall the library updating process freezing if that wasn't sorted.

Hmm. Two things. One, are you using Zotero 5? The most recent Zotero 5 moves the data directory from Application Support to /Documents/Zotero. You can check by opening the Zotero app, choosing preferences, and then clicking on the "Files and Folders" tab. The "data directory location." will tell you where it's storing the database (and indicate where the default is). I'm not sure how to reconfigure zotquery, so I'm afraid the default Z5 data directory location (/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Zotero) is the only place that will work. The .json file is a different issue. there are some permissions issues when attempting to configure/update zotquery, and I'm not sure it's able to write to the necessary paths. I seem to recall I just copied the .json files from an earlier version to the necessary directory, and ZotQuery was able to update them (though not create them in the first instance). My apologies this is such an unstable semi-solution.

Many thanks.

Damoeire - Zotero (as of v. 5) now uses your home directory by default, so the database is located at ~/Zotero/zotero.sqlite I'm not sure about the attachments directory, as I define a custom path in Zotero's preferences. This is all hanging together with duct tape and hope, but I'll try to tinker with it and follow some of the instructions above to get the GitHub repository in order. Time is a bit of an issue at the moment.

Deanishe - All of this seems reasonable, but it's essentially at the edge of or past my ability to make these changes. I'm not sure, for example, what goes into to fixing the last two issues you've identified (self-update/fixum), though I see you've linked to where the python script calls its own GitHub source. But, I didn't make any changes to the file/source you're pointing to, only made changes to the workflow after it was already installed with Alfred 2. I retained the existing SQL calls just so I could identify what was changed, and in case there's any reason for someone to go back to them - particularly as I suspect in use-case scenarios other than mine (with multiple Zotero user accounts accessing a single library), I've just broken things. Frankly, I don't think it will work as a newly installed workflow. I was able to get it running only because I had it running as an Alfred 2 workflow, and it had created the various json files it needed, so I was able to copy/move them around as needed. I'm happy to keep tinkering with what's up on Github, and answer any questions I can, but this is at the edge of my technical abilities (and time, alas).

Sure - I’ve been hesitant only because I’m not the workflow’s creator, and don’t want to take away from his accomplishment, nor take credit for his work. I forked his project on github and uploaded both the modified python script and the modified workflow (alas, to the top level, as I’m new to github). Download here -https://github.com/lutefiasco/alfred_zotquery

Just to second JGC's post, I too can't seem to find a download.

I can't imagine demand is high, but I've hacked together a local version that (sort) of works. It involved editing the workflow scripts (to call Alfred 3 instead of 2), changing permissions on the Alfred v2 paths it uses (application support), editing a bunch of SQL calls to various fields that Zotero has moved around, plus the "get-pip" fix above and the "fixum" script for out of date dependencies. I've broken a few things in the process (e.g., the "open attachment" functionality doesn't work, but copying citations does. I suspect anyone using a Zotero library with multiple users/group collections should also stick with supported tools. But, good enough for now. And that's enough time spent tinkering with someone else's work - my profound thanks to the workflow's creator, and hopefully s/he's moved on to bigger and better things.