Sync annotations for My Library, Shared Collections & Web.
When i copy a file from mylibrary to shared collections, I lost the annotations, including highlights. Likewise, when the files on the desktop is sync with the web, the annotations is not there too.
jay.chok
shared this idea
This has been raised with our Development Team to hopefully include in a future version.
22 comments
-
Torben
commented
It would be very nice if I could choose to upload all my annotations to the groups version of the file. and thank link both annotations.
a button for switching on and off annotation display would also be very handy
-
Anonymous
commented
I work in a lab where we use Groups to share documents. However, Mendeley doesn't really work this way: documents in a shared group are really treated like independent libraries. I need a way to synchronize Groups with My Library in a way that preserves annotation, allows me to use documents in Groups for citations, and provides a single search tool for finding documents. As it is now I have to search in My Library, then search in each individual group to find a document. And to use a document as a citation in Word I have to copy it to My Library. The current implementation is great for individuals but is a huge obstacle to using Mendeley in a lab setting where many of us share papers that are of broad interest.
-
osm
commented
-
Tboy
commented
For a private group, there needs to be the option of not syncing annotations, so I can read a document free of annotations by others, or choose to read their annotations if I so desire. We often have up to ten collaborators on a project and reading a text free of annotations is very useful. At the same time, I don't want my annotations to disappear when my library is synced. Perhaps for the same entry there could be a local and shared copy?
-
MaryAliceVarga
commented
I understand Mendeley's intention of providing an annotation-free document to add to a group but I think there should be more options. For example, options to have annotations copied over or not.
-
hpiwowar
commented
Agreed! Also when copying a record with an annotated PDF from a public group to a private group.
-
hpiwowar
commented
Agreed! Also if you copy a paper from a public group to a private group.
-
Robert Knight
commented
> Getting annotation syncing right might just be what prompts me to by the full version.
There isn't a separate 'full version' of Mendeley as such. The paid packages provide the same set of features but with higher limits on the amount of online storage space, number of members in a group and so on.
-
mbrehove
commented
I'd just like to add my voice to those asking for better annotation syncing features.
I think the best idea would be to just embed the annotations into the pdf file. That way they'd be synced everywhere the file is synced, move everywhere the file is moved, and could be read by other collaborators who don't have mendeley. There are open source pdf readers that have this ability to make annotations in the actual file. So I know it's possible.
Getting annotation syncing right might just be what prompts me to by the full version. Everything else is great.
-
Anonymous
commented
I want to move a document back from a shared group to myLibrary. Is there any way to retain my annotations?
There should be an option to copy a document from myLibrary to shared (and vis-versa) without or with all annotations!
-
Robert Knight
commented
Hi Jacob,
If you put a document in a group initially and then do all annotations on the document in that group, you can invite other people to view the paper and see and view/add annotations on it there.
-
Robert Knight
commented
Hi Jacob,
Your annotations in your personal library should still be there, they just won't be visible on the copies in the group.
There isn't a trivial "hack" I'm afraid to work around the problem, just copying the annotation data would break some of the constraints in the database.
-
Jacob Martin
commented
Hi Robert,
Is there a "hack" so that we can do this ourselves while you continue with the planning of this feature?
I ask because I have added hundreds of annotations, and then shared my library with a collaborator (who is new to mendeley), and all my annotations were lost. Very frustrating.
I attempted to look in ~/.local/share/data/Mendeley Ltd./Mendeley Desktop/
but was unable to find the annotation index file.If one could find the file, perhaps we could just copy it over the group file and then sync and all annotations would be copied?
Just looking for a workaround, I want my collaborator to use Mendeley, but I don't want to lose all the work we've already done simply because we want to form a private group.
Best wishes,
Jacob -
Robert Knight
commented
Hi Jesse,
You can already do that - provided the document you annotate at home is in the same group that you are looking at when at work. Your annotations should be synced automatically.
The issue described here is that if you add a document to 'My Library' then drag and drop the document to a Group shared with other users, your annotations will not appear when you look at the document in the group.
-
Jesse commented
I definitely agree.
It would be great to sit down at home in the evening, make notes and annotations and highlight pdfs on my iPad, organize my thoughts, and then go to work in the morning and start writing my papers, make citations, and view the same notes and highlights in the pdfs I made the night before on my work computer!
I understand that this is probably a difficult technical issue, but it seems like an obvious no-brainer that would make Mendeley absolutely indispensable.
-
jogile.kuklyte
commented
It would be good to have single annotations/highlights of one files. And if the file is present in other collections (public or private) , to have the same annotations everywhere, and if something is edited of this file in one collections - it would be global.
-
Rajendra
commented
As robert.knight said I also recognized that for PDF in my private collection with annotations and highlights etc when dragged in to a shared collection looses all the annotations and highlights.
For me it is important to retain these as I would like share them with the person with whom I am collaborating with. I think it will be very useful if this feature is added to Mendeley.I also posted the same suggestion in another thread and later recognized that this thread is the most relevant one for this concern. Sorry for repeat posting, it is not intentional.
-
Roel De Coninck
commented
To edmar: I think annotations and notes are included in the search scope
-
Robert Knight
commented
@hubermi80,
To clarify - annotations are synced for documents across multiple machines. The problem is that they are not copied along with the document details when dragging a document from My Library to a shared collection (or vice-versa).
-
hubermi80
commented
The lack of this functionality makes the annotations totally useless if you need to work on different machines. j
