History

Every release of zotLook, newest first, with the notes it was published with.

Every release of zotLook, newest first, with the notes it was published with. This text is the source of the release notes on GitHub and of CHANGELOG.md in the repository. Versions are the plugin’s own; a date is the day the release was published.

1.4.1 — 2026-09-03

Two fixes for the sheet in its own Zotero window, both found on GNOME.

Menu entries no longer open a dialog. Clicking an entry in the contents or annotations menu asked which application should handle file links. The click now scrolls to the page instead of navigating to it. The system previews were never affected.

The window closes again when it hands over. It had stopped closing after a click opened the reader, because it judged by keyboard focus, and the page link takes the focus first. It now recognises its own handoff by the attachment.

Requires Zotero 10. macOS 12+, or Linux with GNOME Sushi, or Windows with QuickLook running.

1.4.0 — 2026-09-02

The contact sheet gets the two buttons the EPUB preview has: the document’s contents in one corner, its annotations in the other. An entry scrolls its page to the middle of the sheet and frames it; a click on the page still opens the reader. The EPUB page overview has the same buttons.

The contents come from the PDF’s outline, so a PDF without one gets no button. The annotations are listed in reading order, with the quotation, the comment and the page.

Both buttons can be switched off in the settings. Nothing here needs a script, so it works in Quick Look, GNOME Sushi and QuickLook alike.

Requires Zotero 10. macOS 12+, or Linux with GNOME Sushi, or Windows with QuickLook running.

1.3.4 — 2026-09-02

Internal hardening; nothing changes for a reader.

  • The four modules are sealed or frozen, and the type checker now runs in npm test. A misspelt method name anywhere in the plugin is caught before it ships.
  • A preference call loses two arguments Zotero 7 had stopped reading. Two wrong comments corrected.

Requires Zotero 10. macOS 12+, or Linux with GNOME Sushi, or Windows with QuickLook running.

1.3.3 — 2026-09-02

Windows follow-ups.

  • The QuickLook and GNOME Sushi previews close when you click a page of the contact sheet, and the reader opens behind them, as the windowed sheet already did.
  • EPUB page links land on the position the reader keeps for the page. In paginated mode a mark that falls mid-column shows the column’s page; scrolled mode lands exactly.

The macOS build carries the signed qlpreview helper; Windows and Linux need no binary.

1.3.2 — 2026-09-01

Mostly Linux, and one change to the windowed sheet.

  • Escape closes a Sushi preview from Zotero. GNOME hands the preview the keyboard, so Zotero’s keys cannot reach it; Escape in Zotero now sends Sushi its own Close command. The documentation says which keys never arrive.
  • Arrow keys in the preview walk the item list, as they do in GNOME’s Files, and the preview follows once the keys come to rest. It is a setting.
  • The windowed sheet closes when it hands over to the reader, as the system previews do.
  • Space or q closes the windowed sheet, as either closes Sushi and QuickLook.

Requires Zotero 10. macOS 12+, or Linux with GNOME Sushi, or Windows with QuickLook running.

1.3.1 — 2026-09-01

Windows fixes, and the shortcuts close what they open.

  • Kept previews survive a restart on Windows. They had been written into Zotero’s temp directory, which Zotero empties on shutdown.
  • A kept entry with read-only EPUB files can be deleted on Windows.
  • Escape, or the shortcut a second time, closes the QuickLook preview and the windowed sheet. A preview opened from the context menu no longer takes the keyboard from Zotero.

No new features, no settings to revisit.

Requires Zotero 10. macOS 12+, or Linux with GNOME Sushi, or Windows with QuickLook running.

1.3.0 — 2026-08-30

A page overview for books. Ctrl+Shift+Space on an EPUB now gives a contact sheet. A reflowable book has no pages of its own, but one published beside a print edition usually carries that edition’s page marks, and the sheet cuts the book at them.

  • Each tile is the page’s own text in the book’s typography, shrunk.
  • A click opens the book at that page in Zotero’s reader.
  • Annotations are drawn in.
  • A book without printed page numbers says so.

The sheet is kept like the EPUB preview and survives restarts.

Requires Zotero 7 or later. macOS 12+, or Linux with GNOME Sushi, or Windows with QuickLook running.

1.2.3 — 2026-08-30

The windowed sheet moves to Ctrl+Alt+Space. Ctrl+Shift+Space shows the contact sheet in the system’s preview, Ctrl+Alt+Space in a Zotero window. The combination is free on all three systems, checked against their own shortcut lists. One caveat: on a Mac with several input sources, macOS takes Ctrl+Option+Space for switching between them; set another combination under Settings → zotLook → Shortcuts. Your own shortcuts are untouched; only the default moves.

1.2.2 — 2026-08-30

  • The windowed sheet moves to Ctrl+Shift+Tab. Shift+Alt+Space was hard to reach, and plain Shift+Tab is how Zotero moves focus backwards. Your own choice is untouched.
  • The conflict check sees more. It only knew the main window’s <key> elements; Zotero binds many shortcuts in code instead, so Shift+Tab was reported as free. Those keys are in the register now, with names.

1.2.1 — 2026-08-30

  • Kept previews survive a restart. They never did: the store sat in Zotero’s temp directory, which Zotero removes on exit. It is now in the profile’s cache directory, per profile and not backed up with the library; the settings pane names the folder.
  • Wording. The German settings say zwischengespeicherte rather than behaltene previews, and the EPUB help no longer claims a preview extension renders the book better; the setting is a choice.

1.2.0 — 2026-08-30

  • EPUB previews show your annotations, in their colours, highlights and underlines drawn as Zotero draws them. The stored EPUB CFI is resolved, so a passage is marked where you marked it. Other plugins’ palettes work too.
  • The book is read from its archive through Gecko’s own zip reader; no more external unzip or bsdtar, no temp directory.
  • Contents and annotations as menus, behind a button in each corner, opening over the text. All markup and CSS, since a preview panel runs no scripts.
  • Previews outlive the session. Contact sheet, EPUB preview and the annotated PDF copy share one store. Two settings renamed, values carried over; annotations get a switch per format.
  • Also: shortcut recording reports a combination that never reaches Zotero; a conflict is shown under its row and stays; nine screenshots in README and docs; the English documentation is en-GB.

1.1.9 — 2026-08-29

  • The delete button works, and the figure beside it shows. Both had been running into nothing: the preferences pane could not reach the plugin object. It reaches it through Zotero.zotLook now, and two tests keep it that way.
  • The plugin’s objects are named after it, with a small z: zotLook, zotLookUtil and so on.

1.1.8 — 2026-08-29

  • Kept sheets can be deleted. Under Settings → zotLook: a button clears them at once, with the space they take shown beside it, and sheets unused for 30 days are dropped at startup. A 0 switches that off.
  • The English documentation is declared as en-GB, pages and PDF alike.

1.1.7 — 2026-08-29

A contact sheet is kept and shown again. Drawing every page of a long book takes seconds and was done on every press. The sheet is now kept until the file, its annotations, the column count or the page limit change. It lives in the system’s temp area, not in your library. Settings → zotLook → Keep contact sheets, on by default.

1.1.6 — 2026-08-25

⌘C copies from the preview. It did nothing before, while the context menu copied fine: the preview helper had no menu bar, and macOS resolves ⌘C through the main menu. The helper now carries a minimal, never shown menu. Reported against the upstream plugin as a qlmanage problem; it was not.

1.1.5 — 2026-08-24

A table of contents in the EPUB preview. It opens at the top, folds away, and an entry jumps to the chapter. Built from the book’s own navigation, EPUB 3 and EPUB 2 alike, without a script: <details> and in-page anchors work in Quick Look. A book without navigation gets no box.

1.1.4 — 2026-08-24

The contact sheet says how far it has got. The progress window names the page it is on, 147 / 300, and the indicator advances.

1.1.3 — 2026-08-20

Windows gets a real preview, and the plugin an icon.

  • Space works on Windows, through QuickLook’s named pipe: the same line shows and dismisses the preview, so Space toggles as everywhere else. Both the Store and the website build answer. The contact sheet is enabled there too; a click on a page opens Zotero’s reader.
  • EPUBs unpack on Windows with the bundled bsdtar; before, the first step failed for lack of unzip.
  • The plugin has an icon: a four-by-four contact sheet whose marked pages form a Z, drawn per size.
  • Also: build.sh no longer packages a nameless XPI when the version comes out empty; the tests run on Windows. There is no 1.1.2.

1.1.1 — 2026-08-20

  • A click on a page in the Quick Look preview opens it in Zotero’s reader at that page. Quick Look refuses ordinary navigation but hands a new-window request to the system.
  • The contact sheet shortcut moves to Ctrl+Shift+Space. Alt+Space is the window menu on GNOME and Windows and never reached Zotero. Your own shortcut is untouched.
  • Linux: the preview arrives, as zotLook now waits for Sushi’s reply; a click on the sheet no longer replaces it with an error; the plugin builds without swiftc.
  • The README no longer reads as if macOS were the only platform.

1.1.0 — 2026-08-20

First release of this fork. Compatible with Zotero 7 and 10.

  • Annotations appear in previews and on contact sheets: highlights, underlines, notes, areas and ink. Attachments without any cost nothing; the export is reused until an annotation changes. Can be switched off.
  • The contact sheet works everywhere, rendered with Zotero’s own pdf.js instead of a macOS-only binary. On Windows it opens in a Zotero window; that window exists on every platform, with live page links.
  • Settings under Settings → zotLook: shortcuts, checked against Zotero’s; columns and page limit; which attachment wins; annotations; whether zotLook renders EPUBs itself.
  • Also: video previews no longer crash; preview on Linux through GNOME Sushi; German translation; only one attachment is resolved per item; automatic updates, lint, tests and a release build in CI.
  • Credit: the Quick Look plugin is Mikko Rönkkö’s idea; this code comes from Guillaume Chapron’s Zotero7QuickLook, about half of which is still in place.