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Site translators allow you to save items in Zotero with just a single click. Here you'll find the tools and documentation to get started with translator development.
Introduction to Zotero translators
Note Much of the translator documentation below is outdated and/or incomplete.
Scaffold: an IDE for Zotero translators
Scaffold is a Firefox add-on to help you write translators.
How to Write a Zotero Translator
Adam Crymble's guide to writing a simple screenscraping translator for Zotero (aka HWZT) is a comprehensive guide to writing a translator using Scaffold 1.0 and Solvent, not to mention the DOM, JavaScript, and XPath. Unfortunately
- much has changed since HWZT was written, limiting its current usability.
- HWZT is not wikified, limiting its maintainability.
How to Write a Zotero Translator++
HWZT++ wikifies HWZT, and updates it by using uplevel tools. Currently (Jul 2010) HWZT++ is useful, though further work is planned, since it currently
- is merely a list of deltas to HWZT, so one will unfortunately need to work with both resources open.
- does only the same thing that HWZT does, i.e. it uses Scaffold (2.0) to write a screenscaper.
Translator Development Outside Scaffold In Zotero >= 2.0, translators are just JavaScript files. While Scaffold can ease translator development, some prefer to work directly on the filesystem. Here's how.
Zotero Translators - The Missing Manual This missing manual aims to expand on Adam Crymble's introductory tutorial, discussing the functions in Zotero.Utilities, describing how translators can call other translators, and more.
A more technical (but fairly outdated) guide additionally covering the creation of import and export translators can be found here