The Zotero issue tracker allows anonymous browsing of tickets, changesets and source code. Comments and ticket changes require an account, which is available upon request by filling out the Zotero SVN/Trac Access Form. An SVN/Trac account does not provide access to any content or code not available anonymously.

If you're not planning to make code changes and just want to try out updates to Zotero as they are committed, you can use a development XPI of Zotero. Dev XPIs are automatically generated every time a commit is made and have not been rigorously tested.

The build script adds the current SVN revision to the XPI version number and the update manifest on zotero.org, so once you've installed the XPI, you can update to the latest build at any time via Tools→Add-ons→Find Updates.

Note that the dev XPIs will often not work with non-English localizations of Firefox, as strings added since the last release will not yet exist, resulting in XUL or JS errors. (We merge English strings into any localizations that are missing strings at release time.) Temporarily changing the user interface language to en-US will allow you to use a dev build with missing non-English strings.

The trunk is the development line for future Zotero releases, including Zotero 2.0. The trunk contains experimental code under active development, and you may experience data loss at any time while using trunk XPIs. You will likely not be able to revert to earlier XPI releases using the same data.

To safely test development code, set up a separate Firefox profile and install the trunk XPI into that. If you sync your data to the Zotero server in your main profile, you should either not use syncing in the test profile or use a separate test account (including for WebDAV file sync).

Using a trunk XPI with important data is strongly discouraged.

Install Extension Trunk XPI

Trunk versions of the word processor integration plug-ins are also available. While these versions could potentially cause corruption of Zotero fields within word processor documents, they will not cause any data loss within Zotero itself.

Install MacWord Integration Trunk XPI
Install WinWord Integration Trunk XPI
Install OpenOffice Integration Trunk XPI

Anonymous access to the current release branch of the Zotero SVN repository is available via the following URL:

https://www.zotero.org/svn/extension/branches/1.0/

Anonymous access to the development trunk is available via the following URL:

https://www.zotero.org/svn/extension/trunk/

The caveats outlined in the Development XPI section above regarding the two development lines apply to SVN installs as well.

For long-term development, you'll want to run Zotero directly from a Subversion working copy:

1. Install Subversion (Mac users can also install it via MacPorts or Fink)
2. On the command line, change to your development directory and check out a copy of the desired branch:

   svn co https://www.zotero.org/svn/extension/trunk/ zotero

3. In your Firefox profile directory, navigate to the extensions subdirectory and create a text file called zotero@chnm.gmu.edu containing the path to your working copy (e.g. ~/Documents/Development/zotero). This tells Firefox to load the extension on startup while keeping the files elsewhere. If Zotero is already installed, either use a separate profile (recommended) or uninstall it and restart Firefox once before creating the text file.
4. Start Firefox. If the extension loaded successfully, you should see “Zotero” in the bottom-right corner of the window.
5. Update to the latest revision at any time with svn update and restart Firefox to see the changes.

Warning: SVN installs are for development and testing purposes only. Do not use an SVN install with important data.