Direct access to Zotero Creators fields

[vwrk]

Debug log ID

HLB6C8RJ-refs-euc/6.7.159-6

What happened?

As I outlined in the discussion here: https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/discussions/2786 I would like to access the Zotero Creators fields directly for citation key generation like it is possible to access the Zotero Item fields. I.e. just as it is possible to use e.g. Series+Date as the citation key formula it would be very nice to be able to use something like SeriesEditor+BookAuthor or Editor+year+title and just getting the editor and not also any series editors.

The auth functions include beside the authors also the editors and series editors which gives very little control.

Zotero lists them in their documentation here under Item Creators: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_types_and_fields

I don't know anything about programming so those findings are purely 'I wonder maybe this have something to do with it', but maybe they have? So might be worth having a look at it: https://github.com/zotero/zotero/blob/main/resource/schema/system-107.sql from line 775 on https://github.com/zotero/zotero/blob/main/resource/schema/userdata.sql line 112 and 266

My English isn't very good, so I hope my issue is explained good enough to be understandable.

Thanks you for your work! It is very much appreciated!

[github-actions[bot]]

:robot: this is your friendly neighborhood build bot announcing test build 6.7.159.2787.5816 ("fixes #2787")

This update may name other issues, but the build just dropped here is for you; it just means problems already fixed in other issues have been folded into the work we are doing here. Install in Zotero by downloading test build 6.7.159.2787.5816, opening the Zotero "Tools" menu, selecting "Add-ons", open the gear menu in the top right, and select "Install Add-on From File...".

[retorquere]

I'll come with an explanation shortly.

[github-actions[bot]]

:robot: this is your friendly neighborhood build bot announcing test build 6.7.159.2787.5819 ("add test for #2787")

This update may name other issues, but the build just dropped here is for you; it just means problems already fixed in other issues have been folded into the work we are doing here. Install in Zotero by downloading test build 6.7.159.2787.5819, opening the Zotero "Tools" menu, selecting "Add-ons", open the gear menu in the top right, and select "Install Add-on From File...".

[retorquere]

With this build come two new features:

creators(type=[seriesEditor, bookAuthor])

selects only those two types, in the order that they are present in the item. A special type primary selects the primary creator type for the item, which would eg be author for a journal article, but inventor for a patent. You can select as many as you want. It behaves mostly as authors (https://retorque.re/zotero-better-bibtex/citing/index.html) but the creator argument is replaced by a type argument, and the type argument can now also take an array.

mostly for debugging:

creatortypes

will return the types of the authors of the item. This is mainly intended for more complex workflows, where you can eg do

creatortypes(/^1primary;2author/)

which uses regex-matching to very selectively pick out patterns. I don't expect many people to use this, but I'm always surprised to what limits people push BBT. More complete documentation will go up as I release a new version. I'm also tinkering with a preview facility in the preferences so you can tinker without actually modifiying keys.

[github-actions[bot]]

:robot: this is your friendly neighborhood build bot announcing test build 6.7.159.2787.5820 ("legacy support")

This update may name other issues, but the build just dropped here is for you; it just means problems already fixed in other issues have been folded into the work we are doing here. Install in Zotero by downloading test build 6.7.159.2787.5820, opening the Zotero "Tools" menu, selecting "Add-ons", open the gear menu in the top right, and select "Install Add-on From File...".

[vwrk]

Thank you very much! Works great!

It is absolutely stunning that you considered my request worth your time at all and then so quickly came up with a solution. That really cannot be taken for granted - thank you!

[github-actions[bot]]

Thanks for the feedback! Just so you know, GitHub doesn't let me control who can close issues, and @retorquere likes to leave bug reports and enhancements open as a nudge to merge them into the next release.