How to attach and manage source links
Cite library items from an event, set how each one relates to the event, find it in your library and remove it.
Prerequisites
- The Timeline tab is open on a library you can edit, with an event selected.
- The item you want to cite is in the same library as the timeline. A timeline cannot cite items from another library.
Attach a source
- In the editor's "Sources" section, click Add source….
- Pick the item in Zotero's own item selector, which opens in its own window. The selector is limited to the timeline's library and offers one item at a time.
- A row appears with the item's label, a type select, a "Name (optional)" field, Show in library and Remove. The type starts as the first link type in your list, "cites" with the default list.
- Click Save. Nothing about a source is written before that.
You can cite a regular item or a standalone or child note. A note's label is a preview of its first 60 characters, followed by its parent's title for a child note.
Set the link type and name
- Choose the type in the row's select (tooltip "Type"). The choices are the library's link types: cites, supports, contradicts, primary source for and related to, unless you changed them in the plugin's preferences.
- Type a name in "Name (optional)" to tell apart two links to the same item under the same type, such as two different pages. A blank name stores no name.
- Click Save.
Find the cited item in your library
Click Show in library on the row. Zotero switches from the Timeline tab to the library pane and selects the item. The button is a read: it needs no Save and changes nothing stored. A row for an item that no longer exists reads "(missing item)" and has no such button.
Remove a source
Click Remove on the row, then Save. The row disappears at once, but the link stays in storage until you save.
Verification
- After Save, reselect the event: the rows are still there with the types and names you set.
- In the library, select the cited item. The item pane's "Timelines" section lists the event.
Troubleshooting
The picker refuses some items, and the reason shows under the Sources list:
- An attachment is refused:
"<label>" is an attachment; cite the item it belongs to instead.Pick the parent item. - One of the plugin's own items is refused:
"<label>" is one of this plugin's own items; it can't be a source. - An item from another library is refused:
"<label>" is in another library; a source has to be from this one. - A duplicate is refused:
"<label>" is already a source on this event with the same type and no name.The same item is allowed again under a different type, or with a name.
The editor's source controls are greyed out in a read-only library.