[HN Gopher] Zotero for Android available for beta tests
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Zotero for Android available for beta tests
Author : pivic
Score : 255 points
Date : 2023-12-25 08:30 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (forums.zotero.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (forums.zotero.org)
| djtango wrote:
| appreciate it's still in beta but save from browser will probably
| finally break my curse of 1000+ chrome tabs... (most of which are
| old HN threads)
| smitty1e wrote:
| ZotDroid has worked well on the tablet.
| atomicnature wrote:
| Love Zotero. I've found it to be the best document manager of the
| available options. Good for research organization, casual
| reading, highlighting, annotations, and so on.
|
| Just want to thank the devs for sharing it with the world :)
| sva_ wrote:
| Great to see this, even though the functionality is currently
| pretty limited. PDF download doesn't seem to work currently, even
| if the PDF is available via e.g. arxiv. Going to keep an eye on
| the development.
| ZunarJ5 wrote:
| There's also Zoo for Zotero.
|
| https://github.com/mickstar/Zoo-For-Zotero
| CrazyStat wrote:
| I use zoo for zotero on my e-ink android tablet (Boox Tab X).
| It lacks quite a few zotero features but works well for my
| workflow--I manage my library on my desktop (downloading
| papers, adding tags, etc.), then sync to my Tab X where I can
| read and mark up the pdfs and sync them back to my desktop.
| It's a great paper reading experience.
| j4yav wrote:
| Out of curiosity what is it? Neither the store link or this one
| seem to explain. Is it some kind of citations tracking system? A
| pdf editor? I'm not sure what the features add up to in total.
| freddex wrote:
| It's mostly a tool to manage research literature. It allows you
| to add works you are viewing in your web browser to
| collections. Then, you can create bibliographies from these
| collections. As a researcher I use it a lot, since it makes
| working with references much smoother. There's also extra
| features like cloud syncing and most recently an integrated PDF
| viewer and annotator. https://www.zotero.org/
| P-Nuts wrote:
| A bit like JabRef then? That was what I was using when was in
| academia but that was 15-20 years ago.
| DoctorDabadedoo wrote:
| Exactly like the new generation of JabRef and Mendeley.
| swamp_donkey wrote:
| Qiqqa used to be my choice in this space but the devs
| have moved on
| panza wrote:
| Yeah, fundamentally it helps you manage _records_ of documents.
| Of course you can also attach PDFs and full text (if you have
| them), but it 's the record that's important.
|
| A common use case is in academia - it helps you track your
| citations and then output standardised reference lists, which
| is a pain to do by hand.
|
| Other tools in this space are Mendeley and Endnote.
| aragonite wrote:
| It's most commonly used by academics for automatically
| extracting citation metadata from journal article pages from
| JSTOR, Springer, Elsevier etc. in a structured format (instead
| of having to enter them manually) and saving them to a local
| library. Also automatically saves the PDF locally if you have
| access to it.
|
| It also has a Word add-on that allows you to insert citations
| as dynamic Word "fields" linked to items in your Zotero
| Library, so citations can be automatically kept in sync with
| your Zotero Library and can be easily converted to different
| formatting styles.
| kbumsik wrote:
| Though it is popular in academia, I use it for daily
| bookmarking too.
|
| Zotero Desktop extension allows you to convert any web page
| into an offline HTML. I found it very stable.
| senectus1 wrote:
| Anyone aware of a self hosted alternative?
| Zetobal wrote:
| If you are on a Mac, devonthink.
| boramalper wrote:
| Isn't Zotero already self-hosted?
| zephyros wrote:
| For the attachments like pdf you can use webdav, but for the
| metadata you have to use their service [1]. They have the
| code repos online so it's open source, but no self-hosting
| instructions [2]. They claimed it to be due to technical
| difficulties [3], though imo they have no incentives to
| provide this given that they host a paid service themselves.
|
| [1]: https://www.zotero.org/support/sync
|
| [2]: https://github.com/zotero/dataserver
|
| [3]: https://github.com/zotero/dataserver/issues/105
| TontonNestor wrote:
| I've installed the app linked in TFA and it immediately asked
| me to sign in or sign up without any option to configure my
| own server address. But since it's still a beta version, the
| custom server/local only options are probably not implemented
| yet.
| bluish29 wrote:
| You have to modify that hard coded servers in the clients
| to your data server and re- compile them.
| gexla wrote:
| The only server functionality I'm aware of is syncing between
| devices. Zotero does offer hosting space for this, but you can
| host your own as well. It works with Webdav, so I have used my
| own hosted instance of Nextcloud for syncing.
| thangngoc89 wrote:
| Zotero is an offline software with syncing capability. They
| charge for extra storage beyond 200MB, which is their only
| streams of revenue, you can setup a WebDAV server and point
| Zotero there
| Zetobal wrote:
| Oh nice Christmas present. I am using devonthink at the moment
| but would love to have a look at something else how does zotero
| hold up with big libraries?
| MrBurrito wrote:
| Very well I would say (20gb and counting). More importantly:
| Zotero is the only one that does Web scraping correctly. If you
| are looking at a paywalled article, it will capture your DOM
| from the browser, so you get what you are looking at.
| DevonThink and many others choke at paywalled content because
| they try to access the content independently.
|
| Last but not least: thanks to the developers for the latest
| updates that bring zotero to a more modern experience. The iOS
| app specifically is awesome!
| phren0logy wrote:
| You can use them both together! Just have Zotero save your PDFs
| to a directory that DEVONthink will index. That way, you can
| use the right tool for the job. For inserting citation into
| documents, the work processor plug-ins that Zotero offers are
| really fantastic. Similarly, for academic papers, the web
| clipper that Zotero has is much better suited to those
| particular types of documents than the more general purpose one
| included with DEVONthink.
| retskrad wrote:
| It's funny how on the desktop, Windows has more apps and
| developers generally target it before MacOS. On mobile, it's the
| opposite where developers make apps for iOS first and release the
| Android version months/years later, even though Android has a 70%
| marketshare in mobile.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Android users don't want to pay for apps, that's why they get
| lower priority in general.
| feitingen wrote:
| This is also self-reinforcing, since apps worth paying for
| are released on ios first.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Yes and no. The Android Market was only a few months behind
| the App Store (paid apps took another year) but when
| Android started to take off, lots and lots of developers
| started to try to come to Android in a big way and some
| even experimented with being Android first. But they all
| largely failed. Companies that actively invested in trying
| to be Android-first for a paid app have largely failed or
| been relegated to a very specific niche.
|
| First, I think it was because the tooling was so much worse
| for Android than iOS, especially in the early years. And
| Google didn't bother enforcing or even really outlining any
| HIGs for the longest time. It didn't help that every
| Android maker had its own skin for the longest time (that
| is mostly over now, except for Samsung and some Chinese
| phone makers -- and I would argue Samsung has a distinctive
| brand now that people buy their phones for their interface.
| They don't want stock Android, they want the Galaxy Android
| experience).
|
| But then even when you did have hit phones, like the first
| Motorola Droid and the Samsung Galaxy S (where the Galaxy
| S3 was a huge moment) and better dev tools, you still
| didn't have users willing to pay for apps or even IAP. And
| it is hard to justify heavy-investment into a platform that
| people won't pay for if your primary business is selling an
| app.
|
| It also helps that iOS users typically have devices that
| are updated more regularly and that iOS devices are
| supported longer. And or course, there are fewer devices to
| test (though far more than there used to be).
| tomrod wrote:
| Indeed. Fdroid is amazing compared to the hot mess of ads of
| the play store.
| dagmx wrote:
| Add to that, there's a huge variance in device hardware, form
| factors, OS versions and API support for Android. As well as
| poorer UI APIs and harder to integrate C code (important to
| sharing cross platform libs).
|
| The ROI on delivering a *good* experience for Android users
| is really low.
| windexh8er wrote:
| This is an old trope that's not nearly as relevant as you
| seem to imply. It is also the same problem Apple would have
| with laptop and desktops, but is really not an issue.
|
| I, personally, believe that the platform has very little to
| do with that disparity of revenue at this point - but it is
| directly related to the demographic purchasing the phone.
| Android phones are often much easier to acquire with fewer
| financial resources. That is not the market Apple has
| targeted or has wanted to cater to in their quest to
| position themselves as a more premium brand. In some cases
| they may be and in others it is a marketing facade that
| people have bought into.
|
| But, the reality is to deliver a _good_ experience on
| Android isn 't any harder than that same experience on
| Apple. Is it as financially rewarding? Probably not, again
| due to the difference in overall demographic of users. But
| I think it has very little to do with technical limitations
| or variances as described.
| acdha wrote:
| It all comes back to revenue: Android has twice the market
| share but users are about as third as likely to pay for apps /
| in-app purchases so the market is a lot more even than it might
| seem. I don't think that's because android users are
| significantly more inclined towards piracy but rather that
| there are really two groups, and the ones who bought the
| cheapest phone they could find contribute market share only for
| free apps.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > and the ones who bought the cheapest phone they could find
| contribute market share only for free apps.
|
| This can't really be true; it would imply that the actual
| value of all phone apps is zero, and the only reason people
| pay for them is that they need to get rid of some cash.
| jampekka wrote:
| If someting isn't paid for it has no value?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| If something has value of its own, then it will be
| purchased regardless of whether other unrelated products
| are or aren't purchased.
|
| Thus, in order for people who don't find iPhones
| particularly valuable to contribute zero market share to
| the independent market for phone software, it can only be
| the case that phone software has no value.
| layer8 wrote:
| It will only be purchase by people who can afford it and
| who find it worth the price. If someone doesn't purchase
| it, there is no implication that they see zero value in
| it.
| throw10920 wrote:
| ...and if there's piracy involved, then even people who
| can afford it and find it worth the price may not pay for
| it.
| jampekka wrote:
| So e.g. Hacker News has no value? Or Linux? Or sex
| without prostitution?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| A very smart man a while back proposed that any given
| thing has two kinds of value: use value and exchange
| value. One does not necessarily overlap with the other,
| yet both can totally capture a things "value" depending
| on where you start.
| dotancohen wrote:
| A more compelling argument might propose that the paid or
| expensive apps are simply not appealing enough to those
| whose primary factor when selecting a phone is price.
| acdha wrote:
| It's just that people who don't have money don't spend it.
| If you have a ton of senior citizens getting lifeline
| phones, it doesn't tell you much about the spending habits
| of Android users who aren't on fixed incomes.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| I wonder if that's a self fulfilling prophecy. They expect
| android users to pay less therefore there tends to be a worse
| experience ( ads or no app at all) therefore android users
| are conditioned that apps are worthless.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| > It's funny how on the desktop, Windows has more apps and
| developers generally target it before MacOS.
|
| I would say this is true for _certain types_ of apps. Games,
| indisputably are Windows-first (and no matter what the Apple
| Game Porting Toolkit offers, without Apple going full Valve,
| this will remain the case), and certain business applications
| (AutoCAD, some medical stuff, other highly-specific and niche
| engineering apps, internal LOB apps for corporate clients
| environments) are either Windows-only or best on Windows, but I
| would argue that since at least 2005 or 2006, the amount of
| _good_ software that is Mac-first or Mac-only is significantly
| higher than any other platform.
|
| Obviously, in 2024, the web is the main application platform.
| The web won. But despite having a smaller market share (and
| today the market share is higher than any other time), there
| has long been a disproportionate ratio of good software on Mac
| versus other platforms.
| layer8 wrote:
| Android may have 70% device market share, but iOS has close to
| 70% of app store revenue market share. This is because iDevice
| ownership correlates with higher spending on apps. In other
| words, publishing an iOS app is more profitable than publishing
| an Android app.
|
| Even for free apps, if they are associated with an optional
| payed service (like Zotero Storage), it can make economical
| sense to publish an iOS app first.
| vodou wrote:
| If I mostly want to keep my own document repository (pdf, word,
| etc) with search ability over all included documents and, maybe,
| the ability to do notations, is this the right tool? If not, any
| suggestions?
| kumarsw wrote:
| JabRef. No cloud component and as a bonus the database is just
| a BibTex file which you can keep in Git.
| growingkittens wrote:
| I don't know much about JabRef itself, but a quick search
| seems to indicate that one of the key differences is word
| document integration - JabRef is focused on bibtex.
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| There a zotero plugin that stores the entire contents of your
| zotero db as an auto-updated bibtex file too.
|
| https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex
| growingkittens wrote:
| Yes, this can be used as a document manager for those purposes,
| with selected plugins (which ones are based on preference; the
| list is not too long [1]). It now has the ability open and
| annotate PDFs, although for a long time it did not. There are
| additional notetaking plugins.
|
| It doesn't have all the features of traditional document
| managers, but it will be far better for handling annotations.
|
| [1] https://www.zotero.org/support/plugins
| swamp_donkey wrote:
| I used to use qiqqa for exactly what you describe but I think
| zotero has won this space
| dylmye wrote:
| Zotero got me through university. If their app supports
| Chromebook this could make them even more useful for new students
| on a budget.
| bluish29 wrote:
| Although this would be useful. Students currently using
| Chromebooks can still use it. Install connector(extension) from
| Chrome app store and choose save to library (online zotero
| library) instead. It is annoying that you will need to do that
| with every addition to the library but this will work.
| juujian wrote:
| Oooh, I wanted this but didn't think it would happen. And now
| it's here, around the same time that we can finally use their
| extension on Firefox for Android, too.
| jarbus wrote:
| As an iPad user, I'm more excited for the rumored Epub support.
| So excited to keep all my books and PDFs in one place
| xattt wrote:
| Hot take: the iPad/iOS Zotero reading experience is worlds
| apart from the PDF.js reader in Windows clients.
| layer8 wrote:
| In which direction? (I don't use either.)
| xattt wrote:
| The iOS version uses PDFkit, so the options for viewing and
| annotation are much better. It drives me bonkers that I
| can't do single-page view on the desktop app.
| kergonath wrote:
| An iPad is the ideal form factor for this kind of things.
| Reading and annotating PDFs on that thing is a joy.
| evolve2k wrote:
| I'm considering getting an iPad mini to read & annotate
| within Zotero.
|
| Anyone have experience of using an iPad mini for this. Is
| the form factor do-able or really too small?
|
| I like that I could read lying down with one hand, which I
| can't achieve with a full-sized iPad.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| This is pretty exciting news (even in early beta and missing a
| lot of features I'd like).
| Poudlardo wrote:
| it will be even greater once a 'saving from browser' feature is
| implemented through a firefox mobile extension (if they have any
| plan to)
| juujian wrote:
| Just took it for a spin. Interface looks decent. I love that I'm
| able to invert colors aka PDF dark mode cheat.
|
| But I don't seem to be able to add annotations to a PDF and sync
| that back to my desktop, which is a bummer. I'm sure that will
| work in the future, and then I will finally be able to read and
| annotate papers on a tablet.
|
| Okular set a high bar for what a good PDF Reader can do, this is
| surprisingly decent. The one killer feature which I don't
| anticipate any other software to implement any time soon is the
| "trim margins" feature of Okular, which makes pdfs so much more
| readable. For some.of those journals, the margins are like 30% of
| the width, that's some serious screen read estate, and the text
| is often too small already with academic papers.
| layer8 wrote:
| Librera can automatically crop whitespace. And Adobe Reader has
| Fit Visible (Ctrl+3), which most of the time is good enough.
| juujian wrote:
| Well, for now I can't even figure out where Zotero stores the
| PDF locally on Android... Wish there was a button to open the
| PDF externally. I appreciate that there is a built in reader
| though.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect,
| organize, annotate, cite, and share research.
| fyzix wrote:
| > Zotero is a free, easy-to-use research tool that helps you
| collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share your work.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| (and it doesn't seem to be opensource)
| tkuraku wrote:
| https://github.com/zotero
|
| It is open source...
| NullPrefix wrote:
| There's a lot of Zotero code on GitHub, but I can't find
| Android version there
| tkuraku wrote:
| You are right. There is a zotero-ios repo though. I'm
| assuming after beta they will make the android build
| public as well?
| Takennickname wrote:
| So what? What open source software have you published?
| manquer wrote:
| Expecting(hoping?) software you run on your hardware to be
| libre shouldn't be dependent on your abilities to develop
| and publish software , open source or otherwise.
|
| Not everyone, even in this forum is a software developer,
| and out of those who are - most work for an organization
| therefore don't own what they develop and have limited
| influence to choose licensing of their work product.
|
| At best we can perhaps maybe point out someone's hypocrisy
| if they already develop software who's licensing is under
| their control(I.e. not paid for by someone) and is also
| closed source and at the same time demand for open source
| from others . Even then I don't think it is a good
| sentiment to have .
| josephcsible wrote:
| It's not hypocritical for someone who's never published any
| software to say that. It'd only be hypocritical for someone
| who's published non-open-source software to.
| maCDzP wrote:
| Nothing but love for Zotero and the iOS app.
| pks016 wrote:
| This is very exciting news! Finally they shipped it. Can't wait
| to try it.
| AbraKdabra wrote:
| The Play Store has iOS screenshots lol.
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