aidea-zotero

✨ Features

💬 AI Chat in the Side Panel

Chat with AI directly in Zotero's side panel, available in the Library view and the PDF or EPUB Reader. Ask questions, get summaries, and stay inside the same research workflow. EPUB conversations use the book's EPUB 2/3 publisher structure and bounded local retrieval to select relevant sections without an additional planning-model request.

📄 Paper-Aware Context

Select text in the PDF or EPUB reader and click Add Text to attach the selected passage to the context area. AIdea can then answer against the selected passage instead of relying on a generic summary.

📝 Selection Translation

Translate selected text directly in Zotero's PDF or EPUB reader popup. AIdea detects the active format automatically, with no manual switch required. Selection translation uses the same OAuth/API model list as the chat panel, but can be configured with its own enable switch, model, source language, and target language.

For PDFs, the first selection translation creates a local cold-start cache with a compact paper overview and terminology summary. If that context exceeds the model's input limit, AIdea progressively reduces it and retries, then falls back to translating only the selected text if needed. EPUB selections instead use bounded, selection-anchored book context without a separate warm-up request. Translated passages can be added to Zotero notes or written into a new highlight annotation by selecting Write translation to annotation before choosing a color; existing annotation comments are preserved. The checkbox remembers both enabling and disabling across selections, documents, and Zotero restarts. It is off by default; when enabled, wait for the translation to finish, then choose a highlight color.

⚡ Quick Action Shortcuts

Use one-click shortcuts for common tasks such as Summarize, Explain, and Translate. Shortcuts can be added, edited, reordered, or removed to match your workflow.

🖼️ Multimodal Support

Attach screenshots, figures, and charts to your messages. AIdea supports drag and drop, clipboard paste, and screenshot capture directly from PDF content.

🔐 OAuth Login Without an API Key

Sign in with your existing account through OAuth. AIdea supports multiple providers with provider-specific OAuth flows, so you can start without managing an API key manually.

📄 Full-Document Translation

Translate full papers directly inside Zotero and export either a bilingual PDF (side-by-side or top-bottom layout) or a single-language PDF. The translation workflow supports model selection, output path configuration, and end-to-end execution in the side panel.

Example outputs:

🌐 Multi-Provider Support

📝 Note Export

Save AI responses as Zotero notes with one click. Responses are stored in Markdown and support LaTeX math rendering.

💾 Persistent Chat History

All conversations are stored locally in Zotero's database. You can switch between conversations, continue previous threads, and manage local chat history.

Manually export and import chat archives with optional screenshots, images, and uploaded files. Imports merge new messages and preserve conversation branches without duplicating repeated imports. Settings, credentials, and the Memory database are not included.

Answers can include clickable PDF page or EPUB chapter citations when reliable locations are available. Cross-device navigation requires matching Zotero library items and unchanged source files; paper originals are not bundled in chat archives.

🧠 Memory System

AIdea captures and recalls useful information across conversations to improve continuity and context awareness over time.

• Auto-capture detects preferences, decisions, facts, and key entities from natural conversation
• Per-library isolation keeps memories scoped to each Zotero library
• Smart deduplication uses Jaccard token similarity to prevent redundant memories
• Relevance-ranked retrieval combines overlap, substring match, recency, and importance
• Prompt injection defense blocks malicious or irrelevant content from being stored
• Fully local storage keeps memory data inside Zotero's SQLite database

🎨 Rich Rendering

• Full Markdown rendering, including headings, lists, code blocks, and tables
• LaTeX math support via KaTeX
• Syntax highlighting for code blocks
• Smooth streaming responses

🌍 Interface Languages

The plugin interface now supports 12 UI languages: English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, Français, Deutsch, Español, Русский, Português, العربية, and हिन्दी. Full-document translation keeps its broader target-language list independent from the UI language list.

📦 Installation

Requirements

• Zotero 7 or later
• Node.js, required for OpenAI and Gemini, can be installed automatically by the plugin when needed
• Python environment running pdf2zh_next (set up with uv, or Miniconda as a fallback), required only for full-document translation, is installed by the Install Environment button on the Translate tab and needs an internet connection at that time

Note: These environments are third-party tools, and their update cadence is set by their own maintainers, independent of AIdea's release schedule. Install/Update Env on a provider card installs and updates that provider's CLI (Codex CLI, Gemini CLI). Install Environment on the Translate tab installs and updates the Python environment and pdf2zh_next. If an upstream tool has changed, run the matching button again; a new plugin version is not required, and a new plugin version does not by itself update these environments.

Install the Plugin

1. Download the latest AIdea-x.x.x.xpi from Releases
2. In Zotero, go to Tools → Add-ons
3. Click the gear icon ⚙️ and choose Install Add-on From File...
4. Select the downloaded .xpi file
5. Restart Zotero

Upgrade

Install the newer .xpi package over the existing one. Chat history, stor