New plugin: Citations (with Zotero)

I find your addon SUPER, even if it has not yet led to the goal or success with me.

I export Zotero items that I want to work with in Obsidian with the Zotero addon “mdnotes”.
This creates Markdown files with the title
@CITEKEY.md” (example: “@Akal_ea_2018_DistributedSensing.md”).

These are located in the Obsidian Vault in a folder. The files also contain the additional Zotero link with the Zotero ID as the metadata field:

...
- title:: A Distributed Sensing Approach for Single Platform Image-Based Localization
- local:: [local zotero](zotero://select/items/1_4AYCPGBV)
- cloud:: http://zotero.org/users/4847583/items/4AYCPGBV
...

Example file: @Akal_ea_2018_DistributedSensing.md

The corresponding Zotero items should now get a tag “ObsCite”.
In my case, there is NO exported JSON file of all Zotero items. Your addon aborts the sync with the error message “BBT JSON Library not found”.
What is the purpose of the BBT JSON Library? Surely the information is directly accessible to the addon in Zotero?
My Zotero contains about 80000 entries. If I would set an auto-export, every time I make a change in Zotero, the whole database would be exported.

In my opinion, this file is not necessary:

  • Search Obsidian folder
  • each file starting with “@” is a citekey probably present in Zotero
  • Search this citekey in the Zotero database
  • if found, then assign tag "ObsCite
  • if not found (e.g. because deleted in Zotero in the meantime but still present in Obsidian), then write to a “missing entry” list
  • Write the list with the missing entries:
    • as a Zotero note or
    • write it as a Markdown file into the specified folder with the citekeys
    • Suggested name: “zotero-obsidian-citations missing-entries.md”.

Is there a reason for needing the BBT JSON library that I’m just not seeing?

1 Like