Is it possible for an updated Zotero record to update the Notion record, instead of creating a duplicate?

[nirurin]

I've managed to figure out how your plugin works, and great job by the way as it is helpful for me to use the 'recommended' Zotero program for gathering my references, but still have access to them all in notion for my actual note taking etc.

But what do I do if I ever need to go back and edit them? Editing them in Zotero doesn't update Notion, so would I have to remove them from the zotero collection, edit them, and then copy them back in?

I just did a quick test on that, and I ended up with two copies on Notion, so they don't seem to overwrite themselves?

Is there a way to make it so that the edited version will overwrite the notion entry for that reference?

Or, even better, would be avoiding the part where you can only sync by adding a new zotero to a collection, and instead have a manual 'sync all' that updates all records. But again not sure if thats possible with the API we have!

[dvanoni]

Hi @nirurin, thanks for the feedback!

I read your previous issue (#8) which made me realize I haven't done a great job of explaining exactly how the plugin works and what limitations it currently has. I can update the README with more info.

You're correct that, in order to get updated data into Notion, you currently have to remove them from the Zotero collection and then re-add them. This is because the only action the plugin currently listens for is "add item(s) to collection." And you're also correct that doing so will create a duplicate entry in Notion.

So, as you've identified, there's a couple improvements that could be made here:

1. Come up with an approach for uniquely identifying database pages in Notion so we can update them on sync instead of creating a duplicate page. I believe this can be done using either:

   • the Zotero URI property that's being saved in Notion
   • the Notion link that's attached to a Zotero item when synced into Notion

2. Come up with a better method of triggering the sync to Notion. A couple possible approaches for this:

   • (as you mentioned) add a manually-triggered "sync all" option, possibly to the collection context menu
   • add a listener for the "modify item(s)" action to automatically trigger a sync whenever an item is edited in the "monitored collection"

Does this sound like it captures your needs?

[nirurin]

Thanks for the reply! Yeh I ended the old comment and started this one because I had resolved my original issue and didn't want to confuse things.

1. Both of the solutions you write for issue 1 make sense, but I don't know enough about the zotero and notion api in order to know which solution would work out the best.

2. Again, both of these solutions sound great, but I would suggest that in an ideal works the program would allow for -both- things. Having it automatically detect modified items and update into notion would be perfect, but I think having a manual 'update/sync all' button would also be useful to have.

Great work on this, I just started my masters so I'll definitely be making use of this. If there's anything I can do to help please let me know!

[viv-yeung]

+1! Your plugin saves me so much time. Thanks! It would be awesome if it could sync notes as well.

[dvanoni]

@nirurin @viv-yeung I've just released version 0.2.0 that adds the option (available in Notero preferences) to sync items when they're modified. It also updates the existing pages in Notion rather than creating duplicates!

I've updated the README a bit with more details of how the plugin works.

Let me know if this works for you!