Data Unbound

A Chickenfoot script for calculating the primary and secondary Zotero items (which draws upon the code in overlay.js->onLoad():

// based on https://www.zotero.org/trac/browser/extension/tags/1.0.7/chrome/content/zotero/overlay.js#L153

var Zotero = chromeWindow.Zotero;

var itemTypes = Zotero.ItemTypes.getPrimaryTypes();

for(var i = 0; i<itemTypes.length; i++) {
  output (itemTypes[i]['name'] + ":" + itemTypes[i]['id']);
}

var itemTypes = Zotero.ItemTypes.getSecondaryTypes();

for(var i = 0; i<itemTypes.length; i++) {
  output (itemTypes[i]['name'] + ":" + itemTypes[i]['id']);
}

The output of the script is (for Zotero 1.0.7):

book:2
bookSection:3
document:34
journalArticle:4
magazineArticle:5
newspaperArticle:6
artwork:12
audioRecording:26
bill:16
blogPost:23
case:17
computerProgram:32
conferencePaper:33
dictionaryEntry:36
email:21
encyclopediaArticle:35
film:11
forumPost:25
hearing:18
instantMessage:24
interview:10
letter:8
manuscript:9
map:22
patent:19
podcast:31
presentation:27
radioBroadcast:30
report:15
statute:20
thesis:7
tvBroadcast:29
videoRecording:28

When you hit "New Item" button in Zotero, you are given the option of creating a new item of one of a given type:

Furthermore, you can use Zotero.ItemTypes to map between item types and IDs:

Zotero.ItemTypes.getID('book'); yields 2

and

Zotero.ItemTypes.getName(2); returns book