[GUI Plugin] Zotero Metadata Importer

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Research indicated that seeing WindowsPE means that the OS came preinstalled on the pc from the maker. Google knows everything.

So? Why would the fact Windows was pre-installed have an affect on whether your plugin ran? Or calibre ran properly. Or any well designed Windows application worked. Or, for that matter, any badly designed Windows application. Remember, to most people, a computer is just a tool. They go into a shop pick one, take it home and plug it in. It works. Windows will be installed by the manufacturer, and they won't change it. They just want to use the computer. Most PCs out there are probably running a pre-installed copy of Windows.

And just to confirm, I have to older laptops here that I manually installed Windows on after replacing the hard-drive. One is running Window 7, the other Windows 10. On both, calibre shows 'WindowsPE'. And both run everything I have thrown at them with no problems.

[PeterT]

I'd like to add that on my PC which is hand built, and the o/s installed by me from Microsoft supplied media, the calibre log also shows WindowsPE.

[DaltonST]

Originally Posted by davidfor

So? Why would the fact Windows was pre-installed have an affect on whether your plugin ran?

@davidfor:

Nobody said that. Ever.

As usual, you interject comments that are out of context and have nothing to do with anything.

Since you jumped to the last post in the thread without reading the beginning, I will explain it to you now.


My post to ZoteroCalbrNote:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...(v=ws.10).aspx

Your very first post shows that you are using Windws 8 PE. See the above article.


Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) 2.0 is a minimal Win32 operating system with limited services, built on the Windows Vista kernel. It is used to prepare a computer for Windows installation, to copy disk images from a network file server, and to initiate Windows Setup.

Windows PE is not designed to be the primary operating system on a computer, but is instead used as a standalone preinstallation environment and as an integral component of other setup and recovery technologies, such as Setup for Windows Vista, Windows Deployment Services (Windows DS), the Systems Management Server (SMS) Operating System (OS) Deployment Feature Pack, and the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE).

If ZoteroCalbrNote were running PE itself, that would kill ZMI.

Then, PeterT said:

Dalton; I'd suggest you look at the logs other people have posted over the years. The presence of WindowsPE in the log does NOT mean the user is running WindowsPE.
__________________
Peter

To which I replied:

Preinstalled.

To which PeterT replied:

Whatever. You obviously know everything so what the heck.
__________________
Peter

To which I replied:

Research indicated that seeing WindowsPE means that the OS came preinstalled on the pc from the maker. Google knows everything.

And to ZoteroCalibrNote I said:

@zoterocalibrnote:

Apparently win8 has UAC like win7. The comments in the OP about UAC apply to you too.


Here's how to turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off in Windows 8:

Press Windows Key+X on your keyboard to display the Tools Menu and select Control Panel. ...
Type UAC in the search field in the upper right corner of the window.
Click Change User Account Control settings in the search results.

To which you, davidfor, as usual, made longwinded, preachy, and irrelevant comments.

Then, PeterT said:

I'd like to add that on my PC which is hand built, and the o/s installed by me from Microsoft supplied media, the calibre log also shows WindowsPE.
__________________
Peter

To which I now reply: "That is because you installed it from Microsoft supplied media, just like a PC maker (including those who make it themselves) does".

So, neither of you two said anything of value whatsoever in solving ZoteroCalbrNote's issue.

Quit wasting my time. Neither of you use Zotero and ZMI.


DaltonST

[ZoteroCalbrNote]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

@zoterocalibrnote:

Apparently win8 has UAC like win7. The comments in the OP about UAC apply to you too.


Here's how to turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off in Windows 8:

Press Windows Key+X on your keyboard to display the Tools Menu and select Control Panel. ...
Type UAC in the search field in the upper right corner of the window.
Click Change User Account Control settings in the search results.

I performed the following:

• Gave my account Administrator privileges
• Turned off UAC in control panel (FWIW I'm running Windows 10)
• Uninstalled both Zotero and Calibre, and then reinstalled them
• Renamed a sample of book files to 4 digit numbers using Total Commander's multi-rename tool (e.g. 0001.pdf, 0002.pdf, 0003.pdf etc)
• Drag-n-dropped files into the new copy of Zotero standalone (default settings maintained)
• Populated metadata using 'Retrieve metadata for pdf' command
• Created new collection
• Exported collection to CSV (attached) with no custom fields
• Reinstall ZMI in Calibre > Generate Custom Columns > import CSV using Auto-step and default settings in debug mode (attached)
• Same result (no entries generated unless import empty entries is enabled, even though the Zfileattachment tag is populated correctly)
• No difference if I tell Zotero to rename the files using parent metadata and repeat above

[DaltonST]

@ZoteroCalbrNote:

It adds the empty books because it could not find the file attachments, and the options checkbox said to do that. That is why you see the calibredb command line parameters in the debug log.

If you copy and paste the following entry into Windows to see if Adobe Acrobat executes it, what happens? This is to test the CSV file attachment path validity...

C:\Users\Steven\AppData\Roaming\Zotero\Zotero\Profiles\2yjmvims.default\zotero\storage\9SGK8X4W\0697.pdf

DaltonST

[ZoteroCalbrNote]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

@ZoteroCalbrNote:

It adds the empty books because it could not find the file attachments, and the options checkbox said to do that. That is why you see the calibredb command line parameters in the debug log.

If you copy and paste the following entry into Windows to see if Adobe Acrobat executes it, what happens? This is to test the CSV file attachment path validity...

C:\Users\Steven\AppData\Roaming\Zotero\Zotero\Profiles\2yjmvims.default\zotero\storage\9SGK8X4W\0697.pdf

DaltonST

I just mentioned the empty book import to demonstrate that the plugin is working properly minus actually importing the PDF attachments. I copied and pasted the import paths in the Zfileattachment tag and it opens the PDF correctly. This is what is so confusing.

[DaltonST]

Attached is a picture of the test results that I just ran on my Windows 10 pc.

Note that my options do not use the "create empty book" option, since I want real books, not empty books.

Worked perfectly.

After you changed your User to be an Administrator, did you log off and log back on?


DaltonST

[DaltonST]

By "Zfileattachment tag", I assume that you mean the "ZFile Attachment" column in Calibre. Can you do the same using what is in the "code" box in my prior post, since that comes directly from your CSV file that I downloaded. I need to test the CSV itself.

[DaltonST]

Also, please attach the debug log without the "create empty books" option being checked. Thanks.

[DaltonST]

After you changed your User to be an Administrator, did you log off and log back on?

[DaltonST]

Also, after logging off and logging back on to confirm your change to an Administrator, try this: create a shortcut to Calibre. Change the shortcut to always run in Administrator mode. Then, try again.

[DaltonST]

Another thought: look in C:/Users/Steven/AppData/Local/Temp/ to see if any .pdf files are in there. Obviously I am grasping at straws, since there is nothing that I can see (without actually sitting at your PC) that is wrong. I'm looking for a clue to exactly what is wrong.

Can you create a collection outside of AppData, like in your Documents folder, and try exporting that?

Is Calibre in your PATH? When you installed Calibre, did you tell it to do "everything", which it does by default, or did you say "no" to adding Calibre to the PATH?

If you were NOT an Administrator when you installed Calibre, perhaps the PATH is not correct. Windows security is a pain. Open a Command Box, type "path", hit enter, and check for Calibre in the program directory.

[ZoteroCalbrNote]

Restarted computer > imported new batch of files > Create new collection > Export CSV > Import using ZMI without empty import option > debug file with new csv attached.

[ZoteroCalbrNote]

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Another thought: look in C:/Users/Steven/AppData/Local/Temp/ to see if any .pdf files are in there.

Only text files sadly

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Can you create a collection outside of AppData, like in your Documents folder, and try exporting that?

Will try later today and report back

Originally Posted by DaltonST

Is Calibre in your PATH? When you installed Calibre, did you tell it to do "everything", which it does by default, or did you say "no" to adding Calibre to the PATH?

I installed using the Administrator account on the computer and didn't tick (or untick) any options - I just left everything completely default.

Originally Posted by DaltonST

If you were NOT an Administrator when you installed Calibre, perhaps the PATH is not correct. Windows security is a pain. Open a Command Box, type "path", hit enter, and check for Calibre in the program directory.

I do see C:\Program Files\Calibre2 after typing "path" in the cmd prompt. Could Windows Defender be blocking access for some reason?

[DaltonST]

I assume that you checked the PATH to ensure it includes Calibre.

I am going to "turn on" a lot of the debugging print commands in ZMI, and then upload it just for you to download and import into Calibre manually. Then, repeat what you just did. Be sure to run Calibre as an Administrator per a previous post, and to restart Calibre in "debug mode" via the Preferences button.

Check back right here in a little while for a special version of ZMI just for you to debug with.


DaltonST