Zotivity 1.2.1

Fixed

• Duplicates: a copy with a file no longer loses to a copy without one. If a PDF yielded no readable text, it counted the same as no PDF at all, and the preferred library could win with a copy that has no file. The work then seemed to be missing from the corpus. It now appears under problems, with the hint about text recognition.
• Duplicates: the copy from the collections you chose for a corpus comes first. Among equally good copies, the dialog before indexing preselects the copy from the corpus, even if another copy has already been read. Runs for one corpus or collection that do not ask choose the same way.

New

• Index → Duplicates: choose again for a corpus. This opens the selection for all works of a corpus, with its copies preselected. Nothing changes until you apply it.

Changed

• Index → Last run: a cancelled run now shows the current status of the corpus, with the same numbers as the corpora table, and the button is called Index like there, because it reads what is open now and does not continue the old list.

Install (Windows)

Download Zotivity-Setup-1.2.1.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against Zotivity-Setup-1.2.1.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• Zotivity is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• Zotivity is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

Zotivity 1.2.0

New

• Mistral as a language model provider. Mistral Large 4 and Small 4 are suggested; with a key, the app loads the current model list. For processing in the EU, change the server address to https://api.eu.mistral.ai (10 % surcharge, not all models).
• Database search shows the way: the tabs show the status (a tick when done, numbers for the pool and screening), and a line below them says what to do next. Every tab has Next, which turns blue once nothing is open in the current one; nothing is locked. After the handover, it leads on to creating a corpus.

Changed

• Search no longer belongs to a project. It moved down to the views that apply to all projects (Ctrl+6 stays). There is one search history; existing histories are merged. Switching projects keeps the fields, results and selection. Items can be added to any corpus, and results show all corpora containing them. Search history is no longer part of .zoty files; older files still import it.
• Database search, clearer names: the tab "Project" is now "Research question", so that "project" only means the Zotivity project; "Folders" is now "Target & folders" and also holds the target in Zotero. The target library can be chosen right at the check in the pool.
• AI suggestion for folders now also uses a sample of the titles in the pool, not only those of included works.
• AI buttons without a research question now say visibly what is missing instead of only being greyed out.
• Database search: one rule for button colours. Blue is the next step, at most one per area; violet starts a language model; white is for other actions. In Search & import, for example, "Search all" is blue while something has not been searched yet, and it follows "Add search string".
• Database search: areas with AI suggestions are tinted violet. "Apply all" under search strings per source is now called "Apply all as search strings", because the AI suggestion has a button with the same name.

Fixed

• Zotivity no longer disturbs Zotero while it starts. Zotero opens its interface before its items are ready. A request from Zotivity in that moment could apparently leave Zotero stuck on "Loading items" until it was restarted. Zotivity now only pings until Zotero is ready: the Zotero plugin shows that the start is finished; without the plugin, Zotivity waits 20 seconds.
• A hanging Zotero is reported correctly and quickly. Instead of waiting two minutes and then saying that Zotero is not running, Zotivity says after a few seconds that Zotero is running but its interface does not respond, and asks to restart Zotero.
• After a change of the target library, the pool named the new library for matches found in the old one. It now asks for a new check, and the new check removes the old matches. What was already handed over stays linked.

Install (Windows)

Download Zotivity-Setup-1.2.0.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against Zotivity-Setup-1.2.0.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• Zotivity is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• Zotivity is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

Zotivity 1.1.1

Fixed

• Scrolling with two fingers no longer zooms. During a two-finger scroll on a touchpad, Windows also reports small scaling movements. They added up across gestures until the interface zoomed, most noticeably in long lists such as the collections of a corpus. Now only a deliberate pinch within one gesture zooms.

Changed

• Buttons that start a language model are violet, for example AI suggestion, Create evaluation sheets, Write sections and Shorten. Send in Ask stays blue, and so do buttons that only apply a suggestion.
• Settings → Setup: the button leading on to the Guide is always highlighted.

Install (Windows)

Download Zotivity-Setup-1.1.1.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against Zotivity-Setup-1.1.1.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• Zotivity is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• Zotivity is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

Zotivity 1.1.0

ZotLLM is now Zotivity. The name fits what the application has become: comprehensive scholarly work with your Zotero
library, not only language models.

Moving from ZotLLM

• On the first start, Zotivity takes over the data folders, settings and stored API keys of ZotLLM automatically.
• Projects are saved as .zoty files; .zllm files from earlier versions can still be imported.
• Replace the Zotero plugin: remove the old "ZotLLM" plugin in Zotero and install the new one (Settings → Zotero and export → Save plugin). The setup checklist reminds you. Word documents with existing citations keep working.
• The installer updates an existing ZotLLM installation and removes its old program folder. The command zotllm and the environment variables ZOTLLM_* still work.

New

• Database search (new project view, Ctrl+2; German: “Recherche”): the step before the literature review. A search project leads from the research question to the selected literature in Zotero, in nine tabs (Alt+1 … Alt+9). Everything is saved automatically:
  • Project and Databases: research question, criteria, up to three reviewers, target library in Zotero; disciplines and a database catalog with access, terms of use and keys.
  • Search strategy and Search & import: concept blocks → search strings per database with live hit counts; AI suggestions appear directly with the blocks; searches in PubMed, OpenAlex, Europe PMC, ERIC, EconBiz, Semantic Scholar, arXiv, OSF Preprints and swisscovery; RIS import for licensed databases (PsycInfo, CINAHL …) with the date of the search; other sources for the log. No browser automation.
  • Pool: de-duplicated records, check against the Zotero target library, prefilters that only mark (with exception terms that turn records into borderline cases), missing abstracts fetched, recall check with key papers.
  • Folders 1–20 (shortcuts 1–9) mapped to Zotero collections; Screening as cards (J/K, 1–9, X, ?, G, A, Z) or as a list with bulk apply, recording who decides; Handover to Zotero only after explicit confirmation, search log in the style of PRISMA-S and a PRISMA 2020 flow diagram (SVG).
  • Full texts (optional): status per included text, detected from Zotero where possible – still missing, available, not retrievable, included, excluded with reason. Missing PDFs hold nothing up. Items excluded at full text can be taken out of the search's collections after confirmation and tagged; nothing is deleted.
  • Report for the methods section (optional): a language model drafts sources, search, criteria, selection process and selection flow from the log data, in German or English. Missing information appears as a placeholder, and numbers not found in the log data are reported. It does not replace a complete PRISMA report.
  • Optional AI suggestions (screening, databases, concept blocks, subfolders, report) with the model of the pre-selection in literature reviews; token and cost estimate before each run; decisions are always made by hand.
  • Every database search belongs to a Zotivity project; the project page lists them with their screening status, and searches without a project (e.g. after deleting one) can be assigned again. Data lives in research.db in the data folder.
  • Keys for the databases are stored under Settings → Databases, the key for the optional Zotero web API under Settings → Zotero and export. Searches write through Zotero on this computer by default.

Changed

• Project views in the order of the workflow: Project, Database search, Corpora, Ask, Literature review, and set apart Search (Ctrl+1 … Ctrl+6). Index moves to Ctrl+8, the CSL editor stays on Ctrl+7.
• Setup is only the technical part and lives under Settings → Setup, where the first start leads. Zotivity then reopens the last project in the view used last, even if Zotero is closed.
• New Guide, the top entry of the navigation bar: create a project, database search (optional), create and index a corpus, work with the corpora – with links into the views and the status in the active project. The project page names the next step.
• Layout: reading text and forms stay readable and centred; lists and tables use the full width. Panels on the right adapt to the window until you drag them. The project page tiles no longer wrap as 4 + 1.
• Zoom: in the program window the whole interface can be zoomed (status bar, Ctrl + mouse wheel, pinch, Ctrl +/−/0); the value is kept across restarts.

Also new

• Language models can answer with a JSON schema where the provider supports it (Claude structured outputs, Gemini, OpenAI); otherwise the schema is part of the request.

Install (Windows)

Download Zotivity-Setup-1.1.0.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against Zotivity-Setup-1.1.0.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• Zotivity is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• Zotivity is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

ZotLLM 1.0.1

New

• "Check" shows the written words against the planned length and lists sections that are too long (more than 20 % over their plan). Shorten has the language model tighten a section to its planned length without adding anything new – citations and verbatim quotations stay unchanged or are dropped; Shorten all does this for all of them. The outline shows the words actually written next to each section's word count.
• The target length is explained: it refers to the text with headings and citations; the bibliography and the "Literature search method" appendix come on top (Word's word count includes them).

Fixed

• Length of literature reviews: language models wrote much more than planned (e.g. about 2,400 instead of 1,600 words). Each section's word count from the outline is now a binding upper limit in the writing prompt; if a section runs long, the following ones get correspondingly less room (down to at most 60 % of their plan).

Install (Windows)

Download ZotLLM-Setup-1.0.1.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against ZotLLM-Setup-1.0.1.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• ZotLLM is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• ZotLLM is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

ZotLLM 1.0.0

New

• CSL editor (new tab, Ctrl+7): find, adapt and install citation styles. This is a first version and still in development – feedback, bug reports and contributions are welcome as issues or pull requests.
  • Search the roughly 10,000 styles on zotero.org (the list is only loaded when you search – about 300 KB once, afterwards only when it has changed), open styles installed in Zotero or import a .csl file.
  • Other styles are adopted as a copy with their own name and ID, so the original is never overwritten; dependent styles become an independent copy of their parent style.
  • Preview with citeproc-js, the software Zotero itself uses: in-text citations and bibliography entries for nine typical document types, plus your own Zotero items, in a choice of languages.
  • Click a part of a citation to edit exactly that part: text before and after, italic, bold, small caps, capitalisation, name format ("and" or "&", initials, order, "et al."), date form, page labels; move, remove or add fields. Parts used in several places are flagged, and the examples changed by the last edit are marked.
  • Code view with live preview and error messages, undo/redo, earlier versions.
  • "Install in Zotero" uses the ZotLLM plugin and Zotero's own install function: the style is immediately available in Zotero, in the Word plugin and in ZotLLM. Without the current plugin, the style is saved as a .csl file.
• The Zotero plugin can install styles from the CSL editor – reinstall it once (Settings → Zotero and export → Save plugin).

Changed

• Literature review in five steps: "Keywords" (search queries) and "Select literature" are now separate steps. Every step has the same layout: the steps at the top, below them the collapsed prompt (title, research question, corpora) on the left and the buttons for the next step on the right, always in the same place.
• After writing, the review switches to "Check" and shows the text there; the check findings are collapsed into one summary line.
• Evaluation sheets can be viewed: in "Evaluate", a click on a text shows its sheet – fields, key findings, key quotations (opening the PDF in Zotero at the page) and keywords. "Recreate sheet" re-reads a single text.
• Outline sections can now also be moved up.
• CSL editor: a change can apply only to in-text citations or only to the bibliography, even where both use the same macro (e.g. the year) – the clicked part gets its own copy of the macro. The filter for styles installed in Zotero also searches short titles and ignores accents ("fhnw" finds "Schreibberatung PH FHNW").
• CSL editor – examples:
  • "Choose item types": besides the nine default examples, every other item type Zotero knows (e.g. case, statute, conference paper, film); default examples can be hidden. The list comes from Zotero's schema.
  • Examples come from your own library where a matching item exists (for articles with the matching number of authors); otherwise made-up English examples, mapped to CSL the way Zotero does it.
  • "Collection …": show the items of a Zotero collection as examples.
• CSL editor – moving parts: "Earlier"/"Later" leave a group at its edge, "To the start"/"To the end" jump there. If the selected part stands alone (like the year in a date macro), the place of the macro or the whole condition is moved – e.g. the year to the end of the bibliography entry. The bar above the selection shows the path through the macros.
• CSL editor – "et al.": clearer fields ("et al." from … names / of these, show) with an example.

Fixed

• Static files in folders starting with "v" were mistaken for versioned paths.
• Formulas in LaTeX notation written by the language model ($\beta = .35$, $\ge 21$) now appear as text (β = .35, ≥ 21) in Word, Markdown, copied text, the Zotero note and the app; the LaTeX export keeps them as formulas. The writing prompt now asks for plain text with Unicode characters instead.
• "Shin et al. [@key]" no longer becomes "Shin et al. (Shin et al. 2021)": if the author is named right before the citation, it only shows year and page – in Word via Zotero's "suppress-author", in LaTeX via \parencite*.

Install (Windows)

Download ZotLLM-Setup-1.0.0.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against ZotLLM-Setup-1.0.0.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• ZotLLM is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• ZotLLM is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

ZotLLM 0.9.0

New

• Word and LibreOffice documents: ZotLLM now also reads Word files (.docx) and LibreOffice documents (.odt) stored as attachments in Zotero – the main text with headings, lists and tables; footnotes and endnotes follow at the end of their page or of the document. For tracked changes, the current state counts; headers, footers, comments and indexes are left out. The old Word format (.doc) is not supported.
  • Page numbers come from the page breaks Word or LibreOffice recorded when the document was last saved, including a different first page number. Without them (e.g. a Google Docs export), citations read "o. S." (n.p.).
  • Word attachments already in your library are picked up at the next sync with Zotero and read in the next indexing run; existing settings are extended automatically.
  • Citations of Word documents offer "Show in Zotero" instead of "Open PDF", because Zotero does not display Word files itself.

Install (Windows)

Download ZotLLM-Setup-0.9.0.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against ZotLLM-Setup-0.9.0.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• ZotLLM is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• ZotLLM is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.

ZotLLM 0.8.1

First public release.

• Ask: questions about your knowledge corpora, answered only from the retrieved passages. Every citation opens the passage and its page; "Open PDF" jumps there in Zotero. "Passages only" searches without a language model.
• Literature review: an editable search strategy, screening, one evaluation sheet per text (stored as a Zotero note), an editable outline, section-by-section writing, and a check of every citation and verbatim quotation against the sources. Output as Markdown, Word (live Zotero fields), LaTeX or a Zotero note, with a search-method appendix.
• Search without a language model across your library and all groups: copy references and in-text citations in your Zotero citation style, export selections as Word, BibTeX, RIS or Markdown, add them to a corpus or a Zotero collection, or ask about exactly these items.
• Projects bundle corpora, chats and literature reviews; export and import as .zllm files, archive.
• Language models: Claude, ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini, DeepSeek and local models via Ollama. API keys stay in the operating system's key store.
• Built-in embeddings (llama.cpp) with a curated catalog of 12 models, checksum-verified downloads, a short benchmark on your own computer and a comparison mode; Ollama and cloud embeddings are also supported.
• Indexing for large libraries: printed page numbers, resumable runs, a queue, background mode in stages, duplicate detection across libraries, citations that follow deleted duplicates, backups.
• Zotero plugin with context menus; MCP server for Claude Desktop.
• Interface and manual in English and German.

Install (Windows)

Download ZotLLM-Setup-0.8.1.exe below and run it (per user, no admin rights). Check the download against ZotLLM-Setup-0.8.1.exe.sha256. The installer is built by GitHub Actions from the source code of this release and is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen warns ("Unknown publisher"): click More info → Run anyway. If that option is missing (e.g. on managed PCs), right-click the file → Properties → tick Unblock → OK, then start it again.

Then enable Zotero's local API (Zotero → Settings → Advanced) and follow the setup checklist.

Please note

• ZotLLM is vibe-coded: it was written by Claude (Anthropic) in Claude Code and tested in daily use, not reviewed line by line by a human developer.
• Use it as a tool, not as a replacement for your own scholarly work – read the sources, verify critically and do not submit generated text as your own. See the README section on the risk of deskilling.
• ZotLLM is an independent project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. Zotero is a registered trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship.