v0.1.9

Fix: sidenav / section-header / prefs icon was rendering as a flat white blob because Zotero masks those slots and our favicon was a raster wrapped in SVG. Add a single-path vector section-icon.svg (Z-shape, currentColor) for those slots; the full-colour logo stays for the add-ons list.

v0.1.8

Fix: icon SVG no longer rendered at fixed 578×560 — scales properly into Zotero's small icon slots (sidenav, section header, prefs, add-ons list).

v0.1.7

Cosmetic: replace plugin icon with new ZotRead artwork. No functional changes.

v0.1.6

ZotRead v0.1.6 — dark mode + reliable pane auto-follow

Two issues fixed

1. Text invisible in dark mode

The WhyRead sidebar pane hardcoded color: #333 / #555 / #666 everywhere — readable on white, near-invisible on a dark theme. All hardcoded greys are gone; the pane now inherits the parent's theme color and uses opacity: 0.6/0.7/0.8/0.95 to differentiate emphasis levels. Works on both light and dark Zotero.

2. Auto-follow ZotRead pane when navigating items

Earlier versions tried to detect "is the user looking at ZotRead?" by calling getBoundingClientRect synchronously inside onItemChange. That doesn't work on Zotero 9 because Zotero resets the item-pane scroll before firing onItemChange — so the snapshot always saw "not visible" and the auto-follow never fired.

Replaced with an IntersectionObserver attached to the section element on onRender. The observer's last-reported state reflects the user's actual most-recent visibility, not the post-reset state. So:

• Open ZotRead and read it → userPrefersZotRead = true → next item navigation auto-scrolls back to ZotRead
• Scroll away to Info / Abstract / Tags → observer reports isIntersecting = false → next navigation doesn't drag you back
• Collapse ZotRead section header → also drops the flag, observer is gated on section.open

Install

Same routine — download zot-read.xpi from this release, Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File….

v0.1.5

ZotRead v0.1.5 — fix prefs pane unreachable after v0.1.4

What was wrong

v0.1.3 fixed blank labels by switching from <groupbox onload> to a top-of-document <script>. v0.1.4 then added await document.readyState === "complete" to fix scope dropdown emptiness from the script-runs-during-parse race. Neither pattern is robust on Zotero 9 prefs panes — the latter ended up deadlocking because the prefs sub-frame's readyState may never transition to "complete", leaving the prefs pane completely unreachable.

Fix

Switched to the pattern used by windingwind/zotero-pdf-translate (proven on Zotero 7 and 9): root the prefs pane in a <vbox id="..." onload="...">. onload fires reliably on <vbox> (unlike <groupbox>) after the DOM is fully parsed, so DOM lookups in registerPrefsScripts find every widget on the first try, and FTL labels render before the script runs.

-<script>
-  Zotero.__addonInstance__.hooks.onPrefsEvent("load", { window });
-</script>
-<groupbox>
+<vbox
+  id="zotero-prefpane-__addonRef__-root"
+  onload="Zotero.__addonInstance__.hooks.onPrefsEvent('load', { window })"
+>
+<groupbox>
   ...
 </groupbox>
+</vbox>

The DOM-ready wait in registerPrefsScripts is no longer needed and is removed.

Install

Same as before — download zot-read.xpi and re-install via Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File….

v0.1.4

ZotRead v0.1.4 — fix scope dropdown empty after v0.1.3 prefs hook change

What was wrong

v0.1.3 fixed prefs blank labels by switching the load-hook trigger from <groupbox onload> to a top-of-document <script> block. That worked — labels show — but introduced a new issue: the <script> runs synchronously while the DOM is still being parsed, so by the time registerPrefsScripts calls getElementById('zotero-prefpane-zotread-scope-picker'), the <menulist> element below the script hasn't been parsed yet. Result: scope dropdown rendered as a blank widget with no options.

Fix

registerPrefsScripts now waits for document.readyState === "complete" before any DOM lookup. One short await; matches what zotero-better-notes does in its prefs script.

Note on "API key auto-filled after install"

Re-installing the plugin does NOT reset settings — Zotero/Firefox preserves user_pref() values across plugin uninstall/reinstall. The API key you see was your own paste from a previous install (v0.1, v0.1.1, v0.1.2 or v0.1.3) on that machine, not anything bundled with the xpi. Verified:

• prefs.js inside the xpi has apiKey as empty string ""
• The entire build output and git history contain zero sk- strings

To wipe a saved key: about:config → search extensions.zotero.zotread.llm.apiKey → right-click → Reset.

Install

Same as before — download zot-read.xpi and re-install via Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File….

v0.1.3

ZotRead v0.1.3 — really, actually, fix prefs blank labels

After v0.1.1 and v0.1.2 both failed to fix the blank-prefs-on-first-install issue (one made it worse, the other had no effect), I dug into how proven Zotero plugins like zotero-better-notes and zotero-pdf-translate structure their preferences.xhtml. The root cause was finally clear:

What was wrong

Our preferences.xhtml triggered the load hook via <groupbox onload="...">. This pattern stopped working reliably in Zotero 9's prefs framework — the onload event on the groupbox doesn't fire in time (or at all) on a fresh-profile open, so registerPrefsScripts never ran, FTL never got translated, and labels stayed blank.

Zotero-better-notes (the most-used Zotero plugin) uses a <script> block directly inside the prefs document to invoke the load hook synchronously when the document parses. Switched to that pattern.

What changed

addon/content/preferences.xhtml:

 <linkset>
   <html:link rel="localization" href="__addonRef__-preferences.ftl" />
 </linkset>
-<groupbox
-  onload="Zotero.__addonInstance__.hooks.onPrefsEvent('load', { window })"
->
+<script>
+  Zotero.__addonInstance__.hooks.onPrefsEvent("load", { window });
+</script>
+<groupbox>

The v0.1.2 preheat (insertFTLIfNeeded for prefs FTL on main window load) is kept as a belt-and-suspenders measure but is no longer the primary mechanism.

Install

Same as before — download the new zot-read.xpi and re-install via Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File…. Settings preserved.

If v0.1.3 still shows blank labels on a fresh profile, please open Zotero's Tools → Developer → Run JavaScript and paste:

Zotero.debug("[ZotRead] manual debug: " + JSON.stringify(Object.keys(Zotero.ZotRead || {})));

Then send me the output of /tmp/zotero-win.log — that lets me see whether the prefs hook fired at all.

v0.1.2

ZotRead v0.1.2 — really fix prefs blank on first install

v0.1.1 was supposed to fix the blank-prefs-on-first-install issue, but the fix made it worse: the prefs panel's labels stayed blank permanently, and clicking a dropdown no longer brought them back. v0.1.2 corrects that.

What was wrong in v0.1.1

MozXULElement.insertFTLIfNeeded was called on the prefs window itself. But preferences.xhtml already declares the FTL via <linkset rel="localization">, so the bundle ended up registered twice — and Firefox's l10n engine then refused to translate any of the elements at all.

The actual fix

1. Main-window preheat (src/hooks.ts) — when Zotero's main window loads, the plugin now also pre-registers preferences.ftl so Firefox's l10n cache knows about it before the user ever opens Settings.
2. Post-open re-translate (src/modules/preferenceScript.ts) — when the prefs pane opens, the plugin asks document.l10n to re-translate the DOM fragment. This is a no-op when everything is already wired up, but rescues the rare case where the bundle finished loading after first paint.

No double-registration. Tested on a fresh dev profile: prefs labels appear immediately.

Install

If you have v0.1 or v0.1.1 installed: download the new zot-read.xpi below and re-install via Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File… — your existing settings, anchors, and cache are preserved.

What changed

• src/hooks.ts — onMainWindowLoad now also pre-registers zotread-preferences.ftl via insertFTLIfNeeded
• src/modules/preferenceScript.ts — registerPrefsScripts calls document.l10n.translateFragment(documentElement) instead of insertFTLIfNeeded
• package.json — version 0.1.1 → 0.1.2

v0.1.1

ZotRead v0.1.1 — bug fixes

Patch release fixing two issues reported on a fresh-profile install.

Fixes

• Preferences pane labels blank on first install — On a fresh profile, opening Edit → Settings → ZotRead the very first time would show empty rows (just controls, no labels) until the user clicked anything. The plugin now force-loads its FTL into the preferences window on entry, so labels resolve immediately.

• Cryptic TypeError when API key contains non-ASCII characters — If a pasted API key had a stray full-width space, smart quote, or IME-leftover Chinese character, "Rescore" would fail with TypeError: Headers.append: Cannot convert argument 2 to ByteString. The plugin now trims the key and validates it's pure ASCII before calling the LLM, with a clear error pointing at the offending character and position.

Install

If you already have v0.1 installed: download the new zot-read.xpi below and re-install it via Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File… — your existing settings, anchors, and cache are preserved.

Fresh install: same process, no v0.1 needed first.

What changed

• src/services/llm.ts — readConfig() trims the API key; chat() validates ASCII before fetch
• src/modules/preferenceScript.ts — registerPrefsScripts() calls MozXULElement.insertFTLIfNeeded for zotread-preferences.ftl on entry
• package.json — version 0.1.0 → 0.1.1; author reverted to npm string format

v0.1

ZotRead v0.1

First public release.

What it does

ZotRead scores papers in your Zotero library by relevance to your own
published work or to a research-idea text, using any OpenAI-compatible LLM.

Features

• Two anchor modes — mark your own papers as anchors, or write a research-idea text and rank against it
• Sortable Relevance column in the main item list
• WhyRead sidebar pane showing the rationale, referencing concrete methods and findings from both papers
• Auto-maintained "ZotRead Top" collection containing the highest-scoring papers
• Bring your own model — DeepSeek (default), OpenAI, OpenRouter, local Ollama, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint
• Local SQLite cache — re-evaluation is nearly free; English and Chinese rationales cached independently
• Cost-aware — explicit scope selection, preview dialog showing the number of API calls, cancellable mid-run
• Manual score override with the original LLM rationale preserved

Install

Download the zot-read.xpi asset below, then in Zotero: Tools → Add-ons → gear icon → Install Add-on From File… and select the .xpi.

Requirements

• Zotero 7 or newer
• An OpenAI-compatible LLM API key (DeepSeek by default; configurable)

Notes for first run

Before the first rescore, open Edit → Settings → ZotRead and:

1. Paste your API key
2. Pick a Ranking scope (a collection or "My library") — required, no default
3. Either mark a paper as "my paper" (right-click → ZotRead → Mark as my paper) or add a research idea
4. Click Rescore all now — a preview dialog will show the number of API calls before anything runs

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🤖 Built with zotero-plugin-template