Auto delete page when item is merged or deleted

[HernandoR]

At present, Notero could not detect no-longer-existing items, pages related to which will be left in the database.

I understand that is it much better to let people decide how to deal with their page when the item is merged or deleted. But is it possible to insert certain identifiers such as certain tags or properties so that one can create a view to check if any pages need to deal.

[dvanoni]

Hi @HernandoR, thanks for the feedback! It should be possible for Notero to detect when items are deleted or merged, so I can think of a couple ways to approach this:

• We could gives users the option to have Notero automatically delete a Notion page whenever the source item is deleted/merged in Zotero. We could allow users to control this using another checkbox option in the preferences—something like "delete Notion page when Zotero item is deleted or merged."
• We could add another property to Notion to indicate that a Zotero item has been deleted. I'm thinking a Checkbox field named Deleted (or similar) could work, and then you could create a database view in Notion to easily see deleted pages.

What do you think?

[theotheo]

I think the second way is prefer. Because I would be upset if I lost my notes after some unintended action. I done merging a dozen times but I have no idea which Zotero item is deleted after it. So I imagine a case that I merged a couple Zotero items, but which one would be deleted and which one would be remained?

[dvanoni]

@theotheo, that's a great point. If we set up the syncing into Notion, in theory there would be one page that ends up with all the merged data, but you wouldn't know ahead of time which page it was going to be. I imagine this could cause issues if you had other things set up on the deleted page(s) that you wanted to keep, such as custom properties or relations with other pages.

It would probably still be a little clunky, but I agree that adding a Deleted property would likely be the easiest way to allow you to resolve any merging issues in Notion. In theory you could do something similar by looking for deleted items in the Notion trash, but I find it difficult to find specific pages in the trash. I think it would be much easier to have a database view for deleted pages.

[EFFORTSUN]

I wonder when this function will be available?

[dvanoni]

@EFFORTSUN me too! 😅 Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time available to work on it right now, but I'll be sure to post an update here whenever this functionality is ready!

[shiyang1997]

this function is very useful, hope quickly come out, thanks a lot

[jerryliu20d]

Before the feature is added, an alternative way is to add a tag like "trash" to it (can use Zotero-tag). Then remove it from zotero after syncing to notion. In notion you can hide all entries with "trash" tags. Or deleting all entries with "trash" tag every month. I am also looking forward to this new feature! BTW how to vote for this feature in the Project todo?

[dvanoni]

That's a great workaround, @jerryliu20d! Thanks for sharing! 😄

I've been manually tallying votes by keeping track of how many people either leave a comment on an issue or give it a 👍 (which I see you've done, thanks!)

[alvorithm]

I suggest to add a tag zotero-trash and a update the table templates on the webpage with a matching view 'Trashed in Zotero'.

[TobiasDraven]

Hi, I am rather concerned about the safety of my notes in Notion. Like some previous posters have mentioned, it would be catastrophic if I accidently delete or move documents in Zotero, and they get deleted/lost/destroyed/banished to the void in Notion. I agree too that rather than deleting the page in Notion, rather add a "deleted" property or something similar. Also, is it wiser to use a different database for personal study notes, and then relate that to the Notero database?

[dvanoni]

Thanks for the input, @TobiasDraven. I definitely agree that a "deleted" property seems like a much better approach than moving pages into the Notion trash.

As far as where to keep your personal notes, I've been making it a priority to not have Notero overwrite/delete anything (other than the properties it syncs), so I believe it should be safe to work directly in the Notero-synced database if you like. For example, the experimental note syncing that was recently released does write to the database pages in Notion, but it makes sure to do in it a separate section so that it doesn't overwrite anything else on the page.