DBLP to Zotero

An Alfred workflow for lazy computer scientists.

Usage

Type

dbz [query]

and this workflow will search DBLP for papers that match the given query (by title or authors) and show them in Alfred. Several actions may then be performed:

Return: Add selected paper to Zotero (needs some configuration: keep reading!)
Quick look (left shift): Show DBLP record page of selected paper in a Quick Look window
Cmd + Return: Open DBLP URL of selected paper in the default browser
Alt + Return: Copy DBLP URL of selected paper to clipboard

Offline search

Searches and Zotero imports use a local copy of DBLP when one is installed, and only go online for what it cannot answer. To download the latest monthly DBLP dump and build the local copy, run:

uv run main.py update-db

and re-run it whenever you want a newer copy; --release YYYY-MM-DD picks a specific release. A build takes about 6 minutes, uses up to half of your RAM, and needs about 25 GB of free disk space while it runs; afterwards the download and temporary files are deleted, and the local copy takes about 5.5 GB. The dump is published monthly by Schloss Dagstuhl under CC0. With a local copy installed:

Results come from the local copy, followed by a Search DBLP online item.
Queries with no local results are sent to DBLP automatically.
End a query with ! (e.g. dbz model checking!) to search DBLP online directly, for papers newer than your copy.

The copy lives in Alfred's workflow data folder (~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/Workflow Data/com.github.lou1306.alfred-dbz/), not in the workflow folder, so it is not synced with your Alfred preferences. Set DBZ_DATA_DIR to put it elsewhere.

Installing

This workflow requires Python 3.10 or higher, with the following libraries: click, PyZotero, requests, xmltodict (see requirements.txt). You also need a Zotero account with an API key.

Install Python 3.10 or higher
Install the workflow
Right-click on workflow, then "Open in Terminal"
In Terminal: pip3 install -r requirements.txt
Go back to Workflow screen, click on "Configure workflow and variables" (the [x] in the top-right corner)
Insert the following values in the "Workflow Environment Variables" pane:

python3path: path to your Python3 interpreter. You should be able to find it by typing which python3 in a terminal window
ZOTEROID, ZOTEROKEY: ID and API key of your Zotero account.

Acknowledgements

This work would not exist if not for the incredible work of the Zotero and DBLP teams. If you enjoy using this workflow, please consider a donation to CHNM (Zotero's home), or a paid Zotero account.

Also, kudos to the Alfred team for developing a great tool!

That's all

Open an issue if you encounter problems while using this workflow.

Good luck with your research! 🙂