Juris-M Extras

CCBYSA Frank Bennett


Introduction

A few special extensions are built into Juris-M that are not currently available in mainstream Zotero. I tend to code these things when I see a need for them. Since my sense of need is stronger than my skill as a coder, if often happens that Team Zotero later introduce a solution to the target problem that is of much higher quality than my garage-mechanic effort. So if there are blemishes on the tools described in this section, and if I seem reluctant to do more than keep them running in their rudimentary form, take heart: better things are likely around the corner.

Document cite extraction

One of the current limitations of Zotero for collaborative work is that document citations are tightly bound to the library from which they originate. When a project begins with citations drawn from the author’s own My Library, there is no simple way to share the live citations with collaborators or reviewers. Juris-M is heavily used by students of our own faculty, and this is a common pattern over the course of supervision. I implemented cite extraction in 2014, but it was buggy. It took two years, but the bugs have been addressed, and it now works reliably. The steps for its use by Juris-M-only users and for users of mainstream Zotero, are listed below.

Extracting cites (Juris-M only)

  1. In Juris-M, create a group library to hold the recovered citations (recovery to My Library is not supported).
  2. Sync JM Standalone to show the group library in the client.
  3. With Juris-M running, open a document, and in the word processor open Document Preferences. Open the tab for “Project Name.” Set a nickname for the project (anything will do), and hit Enter, then tick the box next to “release for editing” and select the group library you have created.
  4. When you close Document Preferences, Juris-M may hang briefly while creating items for citations in the document. When it returns, click “Refresh” to pick up any items that it missed on the first pass.
  5. Save the document (which is now linked to the group library items exclusively). Use it as your new working copy.
  6. Sync Juris-M to push the newly created items to the group library in your Zotero account.
  7. Invite other Juris-M users to the Zotero group you have created.

Extracting cites (for use in Zotero)

  1. From the Juris-M site, install JM Standalone, a variant of Zotero. You may need to stop or disable Zotero to run it, but it will make a copy of your Zotero database at startup, and your existing Zotero database will not be affected.
  2. Configure Juris-M to sync to your Zotero account.
  3. In Juris-M, create a group library to hold the recovered citations (recovery to My Library is not supported).
  4. Sync JM Standalone to show the group library in the client.
  5. With Juris-M running, open a document, and in the word processor open Document Preferences (same as for Zotero). Open the tab for “Project Name.” Set a nickname for the project (anything will do), and hit Enter, then tick the box next to “release for editing” and select the group library you have created.
  6. When you close Document Preferences, Juris-M may hang briefly while creating items for citations in the document. When it returns, click “Refresh” to pick up any items that it missed on the first pass.
  7. Save the document (which is now linked to the group library items exclusively). Use it as your new working copy.
  8. Sync Juris-M to push the newly created items to the group library in your Zotero account.
  9. You can now stop Juris-M (or remove it from your system entirely).
  10. Open Zotero and sync. The group library should appear in your client, and the document should be linked to the items it contains.