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Today's Topics:
1. Re: feature request: searching online databases (Robbie Morrison)
2. Re: feature request: searching online databases (Mandar Mitra)
3. Re: feature request: searching online databases (Robbie Morrison)
4. Re: how to edit the key? (Joost Kremers)
5. Re: feature request: searching online databases (Joost Kremers)
6. Re: how to edit the key? (Joost Kremers)
7. Re: how to edit the key? (Robbie Morrison)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 23:27:32 +1200
From: "Robbie Morrison" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] feature request: searching online databases
To: "ebib users" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
Hi Mandar
------------------------------------------------------------
To: ebib users <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] feature request: searching online databases
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
From: Mandar Mitra <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 16:46:52 +0530
------------------------------------------------------------
>> Two approaches were traversed:
>>
>> * interoperability with Zotero -- through their public
>> APIs (what ever they are)
>>
>> * more-or-less what was indicated by Mandar --
>> moreover, pybliographer (sourceforge.net), now
>> inactive, had code to do this:
>>
>> http://pybliographer.org
>>
>> "search external databases like PubMed, Web of
>> Science, Citeseer, and more"
>>
>> I never used pybliographer, although I registered
>> for their mailing list five years ago.
>>
>> This kind of code will no doubt require ongoing
>> maintenance because the URLs/APIs/data
>> interfaces are liable to drift over time.
>
> So I guess the upshot of your earlier discussion was
> that it would be preferable to leverage Zotero? If
> their API remains stable, then ebib would not have to
> worry about the various individual interfaces.
>
> mandar
---
Here is that conversation, starting with my original
comments (at >>>>>). I trust Joost does not mind his
offline text being copied to a public forum. Actually,
going offline was an accident -- I much prefer to
keep the list in the loop for these kind of discussions.
One other suggestion too: if you want to develop this
line, perhaps create a new file: 'ebib-harvest.el' or
'ebib-net.el' or some such.
cheers, Robbie
>>>> Something that might be interesting (but that I do
>>>> not use) are the command for extracting BibTeX
>>>> entries from referencing websites -- known as
>>>> database connectivity:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software#Database_connectivity
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_databases_and_search_engines
>>>>
>>>> As noted, I don't use these because my work tends to
>>>> be too eclectic to bother. Maybe if I had a clear
>>>> home discipline, that would be different.
>>>
>>> Yeah, I've never bothered with any online databases
>>> either...
>>>
>>> One thought I've been playing with from time to time
>>> is Zotero. But it seems quite a lot of work to create
>>> an interoperability layer. And I suspect people using
>>> Zotero generally don't use LateX, because Zotero is
>>> more geared toward MS Word etc.
>>
>> 'JabRef' is the competition. I have had trouble
>> installing JabRef on Linux in the past. JabRef used to
>> demand the proprietary Sun Java runtime, but now works
>> on IcedTea.
>>
>>> The thing is, I don't use any online databases or
>>> reference management sites, so there's little
>>> incentive on my part to add it to Ebib. ;-)
>>>
>>> From a technical point of view, the problem with all
>>> of this is that Ebib has its own database and any
>>> database connectivity would require keeping two
>>> databases in sync.
>>
>> Are we talking about the same thing?
>
> Yes and no. ;-)
>
>> I was suggesting the ad-hoc download of BibTeX
>> records, not synchronizing a local database with
>> some cloud resource.
>
> Yeah, I know. The reason I mentioned Zotero is that
> it has the ability to import BibTeX records from
> other sources. So with Zotero interoperability, one
> would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.
> You'd get database connectivity and powerful
> interoperability options.
I note Zotero "ingests content". :)
Okay, I can see how a bridge between Zotero and 'ebib'
and then on to 'LaTeX' could prove useful. You need to
know what kind of APIs Zotero exposes. But then if
Zotero/LaTeX integration is the goal, then maybe
developing Zotero might be the better approach.
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation
Institute for Energy Engineering (IET)
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany
University email (redirected) : [email protected]
Webmail (preferred) : [email protected]
[from Webmail client]
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 18:11:51 +0530
From: Mandar Mitra <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] feature request: searching online databases
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Ebib."
<[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Robbie Morrison wrote (Sat, Sep 01, 2012 at 11:27:32PM +1200):
> One other suggestion too: if you want to develop this
> line, perhaps create a new file: 'ebib-harvest.el' or
> 'ebib-net.el' or some such.
I've just cloned the git repository. Will get back with more questions
when I know my way around a little better.
Sadly, I'm tight on time too. I'll see what I can manage.
Best,
Mandar.
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 01:00:12 +1200
From: "Robbie Morrison" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] feature request: searching online databases
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Ebib."
<[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
Hi Mandar
------------------------------------------------------------
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Ebib."
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] feature request: searching online databases
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
From: Mandar Mitra <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 18:11:51 +0530
------------------------------------------------------------
> Robbie Morrison wrote (Sat, Sep 01, 2012 at 11:27:32PM +1200):
[snip]
> I've just cloned the git repository. Will get back
> with more questions when I know my way around a
> little better.
>
> Sadly, I'm tight on time too. I'll see what I can
> manage.
I'm always happy to comment on code.
I'm also getting used to using 'git'. You
need to be disciplined, else chaos rapidly
sets in.
Just for your info, I have some patches lined
up with Joost.
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=aab361bcb113a2cdfd03237d0d840032.squirrel%40my.actrix.co.nz&forum_name=ebib-users
After that I was going to work on the union
database concept over the next weeks.
Robbie
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany
University email (redirected) : [email protected]
Webmail (preferred) : [email protected]
[from Webmail client]
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:36:11 +0200
From: Joost Kremers <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] how to edit the key?
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Ebib."
<[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Mandar Mitra <[email protected]> writes:
> One use case where this might be useful is if I'm working with a
> collaborator on a paper, and the files are shared (e.g. through
> Dropbox). If a co-author changes a bib file, it would be nice to
> be able to reload quickly. For ordinary tex files, emacs prompts me
> whether I should revert-buffer. Something similar for ebib...
Ah, that already goes a step further. ;-) Not just the ability to reload
the file, but also a warning when it has changed...
Reloading the file is easy to implement, that's just another command.
Checking for a file change would require keeping track of the file's
state when it's opened, or at least the time when it's opened and then
comparing that with the latest modification time when the user edits the
file.
It's doable, of course, but I'd have to think about the best way to
implement it. Actually, it would be very easy if Ebib would just load
the .bib file in a buffer and operate on that. Then Emacs would keep
track of changes. The thing is that Ebib doesn't do that... It opens the
.bib file, reads its contents and stores in in a hash table, and then
closes the buffer again.
> If I can put something quick and dirty together, will circulate for
> feedback.
If you come up with something, please share. :-)
Best,
Joost
--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2012 01:09:55 +0200
From: Joost Kremers <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] feature request: searching online databases
To: <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Robbie Morrison <[email protected]> writes:
[database connectivity]
> Two approaches were traversed:
>
> * interoperability with Zotero -- through their public
> APIs (what ever they are)
>
> * more-or-less what was indicated by Mandar --
> moreover, pybliographer (sourceforge.net), now
> inactive, had code to do this:
>
> http://pybliographer.org
>
> "search external databases like PubMed, Web of
> Science, Citeseer, and more"
>
> I never used pybliographer, although I registered
> for their mailing list five years ago.
>
> This kind of code will no doubt require ongoing
> maintenance because the URLs/APIs/data
> interfaces are liable to drift over time.
Yes, that's one reason why I was thinking about Zotero. Zotero actually
encourages external projects connecting to its server. There's an
official, published API: <http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/server_api>.
Furthermore, it's a well-established, open-source reference management
system, that connects to various online databases, so Ebib wouldn't have
to track all of those.
The main disadvantage is that I currently don't really have the time to
delve into all of that. Zotero is (unfortunately ;-) not written in
Elisp, nor is its API, so it would definitely require a bit of time to
get into it and to learn how it all works...
J.
--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2012 01:21:31 +0200
From: Joost Kremers <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] how to edit the key?
To: <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain
Robbie Morrison <[email protected]> writes:
> Would having two 'git' branches help here: master
> and dev (or development or alpha or unstable).
Actually, with git, branching is cheap and easy. So the "normal" thing
to do is to just set up a new branch, work on whatever feature one wants
to implement, test it, and if it's finished, merge it into master.
BTW, with git, the usual way to contribute code is to clone the repo,
set up a new topic branch, make the change/addition, and then send the
maintainer a pull request. S/he can then pull in your topic branch and
examine the code.
Github makes this process a bit easier even, because you can simply fork
someone else's repository and create new branches in the forked repo.
And when you're ready to send a pull request, you just click a button on
the website.
If you have a github account, that would be my preferred way of
collaboration. Otherwise, you can send your patches to me, of course. :-)
J.
--
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 08:46:55 +1200
From: "Robbie Morrison" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] how to edit the key?
To: "ebib users" <[email protected]>
Message-ID:
<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
Hello Joost, Mandar
------------------------------------------------------------
To: "Discussion of issues relating to Ebib."
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Ebib-users] how to edit the key?
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
From: Joost Kremers <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:36:11 +0200
------------------------------------------------------------
> Ah, that already goes a step further. ;-) Not just
> the ability to reload the file, but also a warning
> when it has changed...
>
> Reloading the file is easy to implement, that's just
> another command.
>
> Checking for a file change would require keeping
> track of the file's state when it's opened, or at
> least the time when it's opened and then comparing
> that with the latest modification time when the user
> edits the file.
The reload command should report whether any databases
have changed or not. That would be useful to know and
easy to compute. It should also warn if recent user
edits will be overwritten and seek confirmation to
proceed.
---
The code to track the underlying BibTeX files is much
more complicated. It will need:
* to be multi-platform
* deal with simultaneous editing and with conflicts
* run periodically, say every minute
Even if 'ebib' offered this functionality, your
colleagues could well be editing BibTeX files with
straight text editors ('nano' or Notepad) without this
oversight. How will they cope with your changes?
An alternative approach would be to put your common
BibTeX files under 'git' or some other revision control
system and let the RCS handle all this. That is
exactly what they are designed to do, whether
client-server or distributed.
My instinct is that tracking should *not* be added for
the reason that it is difficult to create a
sufficiently robust solution -- moreover false promises
will only lead to confusion when not honored.
Furthermore, one of the appeals of 'ebib' is that it is
lean at only 4k source lines.
---
At the very least, a few paragraphs on how this feature
is to work and in what use-cases should be penned
before the hacking begins.
my initial thoughts but I think you get the drift,
cheers Robbie
---
Robbie Morrison
PhD student -- policy-oriented energy system simulation
Institute for Energy Engineering (IET)
Technical University of Berlin (TU-Berlin), Germany
University email (redirected) : [email protected]
Webmail (preferred) : [email protected]
[from Webmail client]
------------------------------
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