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Re:Zotero: Free, easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, cite... by cycomanic on Sunday January 02, 2022 @07:06PM (#29775609)
I use zotero and I really want to like it, but it's not that good. The tagging functionality seems like an afterthought, the bibtex support is only reasonable with betterbibtex and even with it I have issues. For example journal abbreviations don't work consistently, every start up I get told that the betterbibtex styles have changed and I need to restart zotero... File management is also only bearable with zutilo, and I still get issues with sync and somehow some file locations getting messed up.

The whole note taking experience is also quite soso.

I really wish there was a good bib manager around. I don't want to go into a proprietary silo (ruling out mendeley endnote etc.). Jabref is in many ways better then zotero when one uses bibtex, but unfortunately some parts of the UX are not my thing. The best app I have used was docear, the concept of a Mindmapping app together with a bib manager was great however it is unfortunately not maintened any longer.

Re:Zotero: Free, easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, cite... by theteapot on Sunday January 02, 2022 @07:16PM (#29775699)
+1 for Jabref and a bibtex database.
Re:Zotero: Free, easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, cite... by jll29 on Sunday January 02, 2022 @08:32PM (#29776282)
I compared some options in 2005: https://www.coli.uni-saarland.de/projects/irtg/contents/Coll... (Not that much changed, except that CiteULike was sunset.)

JabRef is a good option for a simple desktop GUI based program that is cross-platform, but I find myself writing "raw" BibTeX entries in Emacs or Sublime more and more often without any UI tools.

Re:Zotero: Free, easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, cite... by xtracto on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:45AM (#29782704)
Aaah JabRef, that was my choice 15+ years ago when I was doing my PhD. I think today a combination of portable JabRef and GoogleDrive/DropBox or similar would do the trick.
Re:Zotero: Free, easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, cite... by only4here on Sunday January 02, 2022 @07:19PM (#29775716)
I agree that there are definitely better alternatives to Zotero.
Re:Zotero: Free, easy-to-use tool to collect, organize, cite... by jrochkind1 on Sunday January 02, 2022 @07:59PM (#29776056)
please tell us what you think they are too!