3.1 is now 4.0, and ready for testing

[Dan Stillman]

Zotero 3.1 shall henceforth be known as Zotero 4.0. The release schedule
has not changed.

After creating a changelog
(http://www.zotero.org/support/4.0_changelog), we decided that there's
too much in this release to call it 3.1. Additionally, since we want to
get API syncing out as soon as possible, that would leave us in the
awkward position of calling a release that took over a year 3.1 and a
release that took a month or two 4.0. While this change may cause some
confusion in the forums—my apologies to the folks providing support—I
think it will make more sense overall.

So, here's the new version plan:

4.0:

- Everything in the former 3.1 branch
- Beta 1 within the next couple days
- Push the beta to Fx20 Beta users a few days after that
- Final release by the end of the month (or sooner, if possible)

4.1:

- API syncing
- Probably full-text content syncing
- Alpha or beta within a couple months

4.2 (after 4.0 has been cut off from syncing):

- New item types

Batch editing might make it into 4.2, but new item types/fields are the
top priority.

Finally, before we release 4.0 Beta 1, we'd appreciate any testing that
people can do of the 4.0 Branch dev XPI:

http://www.zotero.org/support/dev_builds#zotero_40_branch

Despite the warnings there, it should now be usable in non-English
locales, and you should be able to switch back to 3.0 safely. (There's
one situation I know of where you'd get a sync error in 3.0 after
switching back—if you create colored tags in 4.0 and then remove them
all and then switch back to 3.0 before syncing—but in theory, at least,
it should otherwise be fully backwards compatible.)

Particular focus is needed on file syncing, which has been completely
overhauled and is the most likely component to be buggy.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release.

- Dan

[Dan Stillman]

On 3/14/13 4:01 PM, jl wrote:
> I have one question as a follow up to the recent discussion on the
> zotero forum about parent items and tag colors. Just wanted to check
> whether the implementation is now finalized for 4.0 and whether there
> are any changes planed for future version? I can work with the current
> implementation in zotfile but just want to know before I implement
> something that becomes obsolet.

Not ignoring this—just not sure yet.

[Emiliano Heyns]

What is meant by "API syncing" and "Probably full-text content syncing"?

Emile

[Dan Stillman]

On 10/7/13 8:14 PM, Emiliano Heyns wrote:
> What is meant by "API syncing" and "Probably full-text content syncing"?

API syncing means syncing using the public API
(https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/server_api/v2/syncing) instead of
the current private sync API (which involves large syncs with a server
queue for background processing).

Full-text content syncing means syncing full-text content from PDFs and
other files so that searches can happen on other machines and on the
server. Right now Zotero doesn't even trigger reindexing of PDFs after
file syncing, so you have to reindex manually to search the content of
synced files.

[Emiliano Heyns]

That is very interesting, certainly the second part. I was halfway implementing something like full-text sync myself -- is 4.1 stable enough for use so I could jump in and help out there?

[Dan Stillman]

Not at the moment. I have some massive changes in progress on master,
but they're not ready to publish. And API syncing is a prerequisite for
full-text content syncing.