Library context menu reference
Three entries the plugin adds to the right-click menu of the library item list. All three work without the item pane open.
One entry, two shapes
Each entry is registered twice: as a plain menu item that acts on its own, and as a submenu listing the library's mindmaps. Exactly one of the two shows, decided each time the menu opens.
- Library with no mindmap or exactly one: the plain entry, a single click. With none, the write creates a mindmap titled "Mindmap" first.
- Library with two or more: the submenu, one entry per mindmap.
"Group items on mindmap" additionally hides both shapes outright for a selection under two items - see its own section below.
The mindmap list is read from the library's storage notes when the menu opens, once per right-click and shared by both entries. A mindmap created or deleted from the mindmap tab shows up on the next right-click; nothing is cached beyond that.
Submenu entries carry the mindmap's title as their label and its description, when it has one, as the tooltip. They are ordered by storage-note item id, oldest first, the same order the default falls out of. A storage note whose contents no longer parse is left out of the list, so a corrupt mindmap cannot be picked here; the rest still list.
If the list cannot be read at all, the plugin logs the reason to the debug output and treats the library as holding no mindmaps, which shows the plain entry.
How the entries look
Both entries carry a 16px icon in Zotero's own line-art style and sit in their own group, separated from Zotero's entries above them. In English they are Title Case, matching the rest of Zotero's item menu; the Dutch build uses sentence case, because Dutch Zotero does.
Eligibility
Regular items and notes count, standalone or child. Attachments do not, and produce no message of their own.
The plugin's own bookkeeping is excluded: the "Zotero Linked Mindmaps (plugin data)" container item and every mindmap storage note under it. The check is by tag, not by visibility, so it holds in the trash view and whether or not the plugin-data row is hidden (hide-plugin-data-reference.md).
The plain entry stays visible for a selection with nothing eligible in it, so a selection of only attachments, or only plugin data, still shows "Add to Mindmap" and "Add Link…". Clicking them acts on an empty selection: "Add to Mindmap" writes nothing and reports 0, "Add Link…" opens no dialog. The submenu shape is hidden in that case.
"Group items on mindmap" reads eligibility differently, since it also has to say what a mixed selection left out - see its own section below.
"Add to Mindmap"
Adds every selected item that can be a node, and is not one already, in one write.
The target is the mindmap picked from the submenu, or the library's default when the plain entry was used. The default is the storage note with the lowest item id, created on demand when the library has none.
Items already present as a node are skipped rather than duplicated. New nodes are created unplaced, with no position, so the mindmap tab's layout places them the next time the graph is drawn (node-layout-reference.md). No links are created.
A mindmap belongs to one library, so a selection spanning two is refused: nothing is written and the plugin reports "A mindmap belongs to one library. Select items from a single library and try again." All three entries behave this way.
This matters under Zotero 10, which allows selecting more than one collection at a time, so the items list can show My Library and a group library together. Before the refusal existed, such a selection wrote nodes carrying one library's identifiers into the other library's mindmap, with no error.
Cross-library mindmaps may be reconsidered later; today the rule is one mindmap, one library, enforced when the mindmap is saved rather than only in the menu.
What it reports
A progress popup headed with the plugin name, reading
Added 3 items to Chapter one
and closing itself after three seconds. The count is nodes actually added, so items already on the mindmap are not counted. A selection where everything was already a node reports 0 and writes nothing.
A failed write reports nothing. The popup only appears after the write succeeds, and the error goes to the debug output. The case to know about is a trashed container: with "Zotero Linked Mindmaps (plugin data)" in the trash and no reachable mindmap left, the write is refused rather than allowed to create a second copy, and the menu says nothing about it. Opening the mindmap tab is what surfaces it, with
Mindmap data for this library is in the trash. Nothing new was created; restore it to get your mindmaps back.
Trashing a single mindmap's storage note takes that mindmap out of the submenu. The plugin reports that once, when it happens:
A mindmap's data note was moved to the trash. That mindmap stays hidden until you restore it.
"Add Link…"
Opens the standalone add-link dialog for each eligible selected item in turn, waiting for each dialog to close before opening the next.
The submenu shape reads "Add Link in", and the ellipsis moves onto the submenu items, since those are what open a window. The parent opens nothing by itself.
The dialog is titled "Add link" and holds the same form as the Mindmaps section, with a line at the top naming the item being linked and the mindmap it is being linked in (links-add-reference.md). It writes to the mindmap picked from the submenu, or the library's default when the plain entry was used; the form itself has no mindmap field. A dialog that cannot read that mindmap shows Failed to load mindmap: and the error in place of the form.
Closing a dialog without saving skips that item and moves on to the next.
"Group items on mindmap"
Hidden outright for a selection of fewer than two items - grouping a single item says nothing a node doesn't already, so unlike the other two entries there is no inert form to fall back to. From two items up, it shows in whichever of the two shapes the library's mindmap count calls for, same as the other entries.
Choosing a mindmap - or the plain entry, when there's only one to choose - opens a native "Group items" dialog asking for the group's name, optional. Cancelling it, including by closing the window, writes nothing at all: no items are added, no group is created. Confirming with the field left blank creates the group unnamed, the same as one made from the mindmap tab's own quick-create action; it can be named afterwards from there.
Every eligible item in the selection is added to the target mindmap - find, not append, so one already there keeps its existing node and stored position rather than gaining a second one - and every one of them, new and pre-existing alike, lands in a single new group. Both the adds and the group are one write, so there is never a moment with the nodes present but ungrouped.
Ineligible items (attachments, the plugin's own bookkeeping) are left out of the group rather than blocking the action or being silently dropped. The eligibility rule is the same as "Add to Mindmap"'s.
What it reports
A progress popup headed with the plugin name, reading
Grouped 3 items on Chapter one
When the selection also had something ineligible in it, a second line names how many were left out:
1 item was left out: only items and notes can be grouped.
A selection with nothing eligible in it shows only that second line - no group is created, and the mindmap is not written to.
Related
- library-menu-howto.md
- mindmaps-panel-reference.md for the item-pane alternative