Zotero Bridge

Obsidian-Zotero integration plugin that provides APIs for other plugins to connect to Zotero.

Prerequisites

Zotero >= 7

Enable Local API feature in settings: Settings > Advanced > Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero

Zotero <= 6

Install Zotero addon ZotServer

Configuration

The plugin settings screen provides the following options:

• Connection type – Zotero 6 ZotServer Plugin or Zotero 7 Local API (v3)
• User or group – which library to search: your personal library or one of your group libraries (Zotero 7 connection type only)
• Zotero server port – defaults to 23119; don't change unless you really know what you are doing

How to use

Zotero Bridge provides APIs for other plugins to connect to Zotero.

Example of such consumer plugin is Zotero Link.

APIs of this plugin are published with Obsidian plugin api library and can be used anywhere in Obsidian.

PluginApi.ZoteroBridge.v1().search() opens a search modal and returns a promise that resolves with the selected ZoteroItem. Its getValues() method returns an object with the following properties, ready for use in templates:

• key – Zotero item key
• libraryUri – library path for zotero:// URIs: groups/<id> for group library items, library for the personal library
• title – item title
• shortTitle – item short title
• date – structured date object with year, month and day properties
• authors – array of authors, each with firstName, lastName and fullName
• firstAuthor – first author of the item
• creatorSummary – creator summary as displayed by Zotero, e.g. "Smith and Jones"

Example use of Zotero Bridge APIs in Templater user scripts:

zotero.js user script:

module.exports = async function () {
    const item = await PluginApi.ZoteroBridge.v1().search();
    return (prop) => dotAccess(prop, item.getValues());
}

function dotAccess(str, obj) {
    return str.split('.').reduce((previousValue, currentValue) => previousValue[currentValue], obj);
}

This function can now be used in templates:

(this example is taken from https://github.com/vanakat/zotero-bridge/pull/2)

<%* const zi = await tp.user.zotero() %>


<% zi('firstAuthor.lastName') %><%* if (zi('authors.length')  == 2) { %> and <% zi('authors')[1].lastName %><%* } else if (zi('authors.length') > 2) { %> et al.<%* } %> <% zi('date.year') %> <% zi('title') %>

How to contribute

1. Fork and clone this repository
2. Link this directory to your plugins directory: ln -sfn <this-directory> <your-test-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/zotero-bridge
3. npm install to install all dependencies
4. npm run dev will run development server
5. Reload your Obsidian with test vault open
6. npm test runs the Jest test suite

Please refer to following helpful resources:

• Unofficial Obsidian API docs
• Official Obsidian API definition file
• ZotServer repository for documentation on API
• Zotero search API code for the most up-to-date search API documentation
• Zotero 7 Local API announcement

Other Zotero integration plugins

While working on this plugin I found another Zotero integration one called Zotero Integration. If you are looking for a citation/bibliography integration with Zotero it might be a good option for you.

License

MIT