totero -- a TUI client for Zotero

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Note: I don't have enough time to work on this, though I haven't completely given this project up. Any contribution or/and collaboration are welcome!

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totero is a TUI (text/terminal-based user interfaces) client for Zotero that relies only on local database (i.e., no need for a cloud Zotero account). The official Zotero GUI client is bundled with an old-version FireFox, which does not support Wayland. Under a Wayland environment, the official Zotero client must rely on XWayland and does not look nice, especially with 4K and HiDPI monitors. So I decided to make my own client.

TUI clients usually looks nice because most modern terminal emulators support 256 colors or even 24-bit true colors. Here's a showcase of this client in Sway WM:

Installation

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This is a WIP. No pip or conda packages.

Dependencies:

• python >= 3.7
• zoteroutils: https://github.com/piyueh/zoteroutils
• pandas
• sqlalchemy (required by zoteroutils)
• urwid

pandas, sqlalchemy and urwid can be installed through whatever package managers preferred. zoteroutils is a companion package of totero, so it's also a WIP and has to be downloaded manually:

$ git clone https://github.com/piyueh/zoteroutils

Let python know where to find zoteroutils:

$ export PYTHONPATH=<path to the zoteroutils>:${PYTHONPATH}

Then download this client:

$ git clone https://github.com/piyueh/totero

Finally, run the client:

$ python <path to totero>/totero.py <path to Zotero data folder>

Features

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1. Pure Python -- easy to read and modified the code
2. Using xdg-open to open attachments by enter. Poping up a window to choose an attachment if multiple files exists for the selected document.
3. Sorting with F1 key. Poping up a window to choose which column(s) to sort.
4. Selecting displayed columns with F2 key. Poping up a window to choose column(s).
5. Moving with h, j, k, and l keys
6. Customizable color themes and key mappings.

TODO

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These features are under development:

1. Selecting a collection and showing documents in this collection
2. Poping up a window to show the detail information of a selected document
3. Searching
4. A toolbar and a status bar
5. Exporting to a bibtex file or a clipboard.

The following features are in the plan but probably won't be finished in the near future:

1. Anything related to writing into the SQLite database. One reason is that I'm not familiar with SQL. Another reason is that I may not have time.