Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On 28.01.2010, at 04:48, Adam R. Maxwell wrote: On Jan 27, 2010, at 7:09 PM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote: This is an interesting discussion. For me the most critical requirement is to have an annotation application that uses ink. I need to be able to jot down margin notes by hand rather than typing on a window. Then the integration of this pdf previewer/annotator and bibdesk would be great. Some method such as the one used by, for example, Papers where the pdf file can be read within Papers would be good. As far as it goes, you can read PDF files page-by-page in BibDesk, if you zoom in on the file icons in the lower pane, or use the Quick Look preview. No annotation or fancy reading features, though. My guess is that the iPad would basically require a new application; BibDesk is heavily oriented and optimized for usage on a laptop or desktop system. That would require significant effort, not to mention a developer with an iPad :). It does look like a good platform for that sort of app, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Both you and James have emphasized the reading/annotating aspect, so I'm curious whether you're looking for BibDesk with a viewer, or Skim with a PDF manager. Apparently, MekenTosj is already planning an iPad version of their Papers application. Although I'm not really a fan of their desktop app for various reason, I see how useful such an app could be for the iPad. But, of course, I would prefer BibDesk on the iPad. ;) Simon -- Simon Spiegel Steinhaldenstr. 50 8002 Zürich Telephon: ++41 44 451 5334 Mobophon: ++41 76 459 60 39 http://www.simifilm.ch „I'm not that easy to impress. – O, a blue car!“ Homer Simpson -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On Jan 28, 2010, at 9:53, Simon Spiegel wrote: On 28.01.2010, at 04:48, Adam R. Maxwell wrote: On Jan 27, 2010, at 7:09 PM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote: This is an interesting discussion. For me the most critical requirement is to have an annotation application that uses ink. I need to be able to jot down margin notes by hand rather than typing on a window. Then the integration of this pdf previewer/annotator and bibdesk would be great. Some method such as the one used by, for example, Papers where the pdf file can be read within Papers would be good. As far as it goes, you can read PDF files page-by-page in BibDesk, if you zoom in on the file icons in the lower pane, or use the Quick Look preview. No annotation or fancy reading features, though. My guess is that the iPad would basically require a new application; BibDesk is heavily oriented and optimized for usage on a laptop or desktop system. That would require significant effort, not to mention a developer with an iPad :). It does look like a good platform for that sort of app, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Both you and James have emphasized the reading/annotating aspect, so I'm curious whether you're looking for BibDesk with a viewer, or Skim with a PDF manager. I think it's clear that what one wants (and should want) is something very different from BibDesk or Skim. BibDesk is citation manager, to help with organizing bibtex, while this is about reading, annotating, and organizing PDFs. So it's more like Skim with a PDF organizing feature. As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone. Therefore we're really talking about a totally different and new app, that needs to be written basically from scratch. Most relevant, Skim and all its annotation features are heavily based on PDFKit, which is not available on the iPhone OS, I think the only thing that would remain is the (tiny) SkimNotesBase framework for accessing Skim notes. The more primitive Quartz framework is much harder to work with, so writing Skim's functionality for the iPad would be a lot more work than writing Skim for MacOSX. I think we all agree that it would be very nice to have all this functionality for the iPad. But given that, the first question should be: who will be writing a totally new app that would be quite a lot of work? I can assure you I won't do it, and I suspect Adam would say the same. So if no one would want to start developing, I'm afraid this discussion is rather academic. Christiaan -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On 28.01.2010, at 11:34, Christiaan Hofman wrote: On Jan 28, 2010, at 9:53, Simon Spiegel wrote: This is an interesting discussion. For me the most critical requirement is to have an annotation application that uses ink. I need to be able to jot down margin notes by hand rather than typing on a window. Then the integration of this pdf previewer/annotator and bibdesk would be great. Some method such as the one used by, for example, Papers where the pdf file can be read within Papers would be good. As far as it goes, you can read PDF files page-by-page in BibDesk, if you zoom in on the file icons in the lower pane, or use the Quick Look preview. No annotation or fancy reading features, though. My guess is that the iPad would basically require a new application; BibDesk is heavily oriented and optimized for usage on a laptop or desktop system. That would require significant effort, not to mention a developer with an iPad :). It does look like a good platform for that sort of app, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Both you and James have emphasized the reading/annotating aspect, so I'm curious whether you're looking for BibDesk with a viewer, or Skim with a PDF manager. I think it's clear that what one wants (and should want) is something very different from BibDesk or Skim. BibDesk is citation manager, to help with organizing bibtex, while this is about reading, annotating, and organizing PDFs. So it's more like Skim with a PDF organizing feature. As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone. Therefore we're really talking about a totally different and new app, that needs to be written basically from scratch. Most relevant, Skim and all its annotation features are heavily based on PDFKit, which is not available on the iPhone OS, I think the only thing that would remain is the (tiny) SkimNotesBase framework for accessing Skim notes. The more primitive Quartz framework is much harder to work with, so writing Skim's functionality for the iPad would be a lot more work than writing Skim for MacOSX. I think we all agree that it would be very nice to have all this functionality for the iPad. But given that, the first question should be: who will be writing a totally new app that would be quite a lot of work? I can assure you I won't do it, and I suspect Adam would say the same. So if no one would want to start developing, I'm afraid this discussion is rather academic. Since most people who use BibDesk are probably academics, this is not per se a negative thing. ;) At least for me, I wouldn't want just a modified version of Skim, but also a way to edit my bibtex data on the iPad. So far, there is no way to do that. When there was only the iPhone there was always the argument, that such a small device isn't really the best way to edit your bibliographic data. Now with the iPad, I think this has changed. I think there really is a market for a bibliography app for the iPad (and Papers is not a bibliography app …). Anyway, I completely understand that this needs actually someone to do it. Thanks for explaining how much – or better: how little – of the existing code could be used. Simon -- Simon Spiegel Steinhaldenstr. 50 8002 Zürich Telephon: ++41 44 451 5334 Mobophon: ++41 76 459 60 39 http://www.simifilm.ch „It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.“ Tom Lehrer -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On Jan 28, 2010, at 11:43, Simon Spiegel wrote: On 28.01.2010, at 11:34, Christiaan Hofman wrote: On Jan 28, 2010, at 9:53, Simon Spiegel wrote: This is an interesting discussion. For me the most critical requirement is to have an annotation application that uses ink. I need to be able to jot down margin notes by hand rather than typing on a window. Then the integration of this pdf previewer/annotator and bibdesk would be great. Some method such as the one used by, for example, Papers where the pdf file can be read within Papers would be good. As far as it goes, you can read PDF files page-by-page in BibDesk, if you zoom in on the file icons in the lower pane, or use the Quick Look preview. No annotation or fancy reading features, though. My guess is that the iPad would basically require a new application; BibDesk is heavily oriented and optimized for usage on a laptop or desktop system. That would require significant effort, not to mention a developer with an iPad :). It does look like a good platform for that sort of app, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Both you and James have emphasized the reading/annotating aspect, so I'm curious whether you're looking for BibDesk with a viewer, or Skim with a PDF manager. I think it's clear that what one wants (and should want) is something very different from BibDesk or Skim. BibDesk is citation manager, to help with organizing bibtex, while this is about reading, annotating, and organizing PDFs. So it's more like Skim with a PDF organizing feature. As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone. Therefore we're really talking about a totally different and new app, that needs to be written basically from scratch. Most relevant, Skim and all its annotation features are heavily based on PDFKit, which is not available on the iPhone OS, I think the only thing that would remain is the (tiny) SkimNotesBase framework for accessing Skim notes. The more primitive Quartz framework is much harder to work with, so writing Skim's functionality for the iPad would be a lot more work than writing Skim for MacOSX. I think we all agree that it would be very nice to have all this functionality for the iPad. But given that, the first question should be: who will be writing a totally new app that would be quite a lot of work? I can assure you I won't do it, and I suspect Adam would say the same. So if no one would want to start developing, I'm afraid this discussion is rather academic. Since most people who use BibDesk are probably academics, this is not per se a negative thing. ;) At least for me, I wouldn't want just a modified version of Skim, but also a way to edit my bibtex data on the iPad. So far, there is no way to do that. When there was only the iPhone there was always the argument, that such a small device isn't really the best way to edit your bibliographic data. Now with the iPad, I think this has changed. I think there really is a market for a bibliography app for the iPad (and Papers is not a bibliography app …). Anyway, I completely understand that this needs actually someone to do it. Thanks for explaining how much – or better: how little – of the existing code could be used. Simon I am pretty sure that a combo of citation management, PDF management, PDF viewing, and PDF annotating is really not possible on a device like iPad (and certainly not iPhone). We came to the conclusion that this was not even feasible on a normal computer or laptop without compromising too much. There's a limited number of keyboard shortcuts and menu items that you can offer, and the choices for those are very different for a citation manager and a PDF viewer/annotator. This is the reason we went for separate apps. With much less interaction you're much more restricted in what you can do, so you need to be much more focused on a single feature, you can't work with menu items and keyboard shortcuts. PDF organize + viewer/annotator can be combined, but citation manager would be a different app. And lots of functions of BibDesk are really not appropriate for iPads at all. Christiaan -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
As much as I like and heavily use bibdesk, for me the critical application to have on the iPad is a pdf manager that allows handwriting annotation of pdf files -- something like the PDF Annotator on windows tablets (http://ograhl.com/en/pdfannotator/). If there is the integration with bibtex, that would be icing on the cake. ==Tamer On Wed 27-Jan-10, at 10:48 PM, Adam R. Maxwell wrote: On Jan 27, 2010, at 7:09 PM, M. Tamer Özsu wrote: This is an interesting discussion. For me the most critical requirement is to have an annotation application that uses ink. I need to be able to jot down margin notes by hand rather than typing on a window. Then the integration of this pdf previewer/annotator and bibdesk would be great. Some method such as the one used by, for example, Papers where the pdf file can be read within Papers would be good. As far as it goes, you can read PDF files page-by-page in BibDesk, if you zoom in on the file icons in the lower pane, or use the Quick Look preview. No annotation or fancy reading features, though. My guess is that the iPad would basically require a new application; BibDesk is heavily oriented and optimized for usage on a laptop or desktop system. That would require significant effort, not to mention a developer with an iPad :). It does look like a good platform for that sort of app, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Both you and James have emphasized the reading/annotating aspect, so I'm curious whether you're looking for BibDesk with a viewer, or Skim with a PDF manager. -- Adam -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On 28.01.2010, at 12:25, Christiaan Hofman wrote: I think it's clear that what one wants (and should want) is something very different from BibDesk or Skim. BibDesk is citation manager, to help with organizing bibtex, while this is about reading, annotating, and organizing PDFs. So it's more like Skim with a PDF organizing feature. As for the code base, I can tell you that 90% of BibDesk and Skim are totally useless for use on an iPad or iPhone. Therefore we're really talking about a totally different and new app, that needs to be written basically from scratch. Most relevant, Skim and all its annotation features are heavily based on PDFKit, which is not available on the iPhone OS, I think the only thing that would remain is the (tiny) SkimNotesBase framework for accessing Skim notes. The more primitive Quartz framework is much harder to work with, so writing Skim's functionality for the iPad would be a lot more work than writing Skim for MacOSX. I think we all agree that it would be very nice to have all this functionality for the iPad. But given that, the first question should be: who will be writing a totally new app that would be quite a lot of work? I can assure you I won't do it, and I suspect Adam would say the same. So if no one would want to start developing, I'm afraid this discussion is rather academic. Since most people who use BibDesk are probably academics, this is not per se a negative thing. ;) At least for me, I wouldn't want just a modified version of Skim, but also a way to edit my bibtex data on the iPad. So far, there is no way to do that. When there was only the iPhone there was always the argument, that such a small device isn't really the best way to edit your bibliographic data. Now with the iPad, I think this has changed. I think there really is a market for a bibliography app for the iPad (and Papers is not a bibliography app …). Anyway, I completely understand that this needs actually someone to do it. Thanks for explaining how much – or better: how little – of the existing code could be used. Simon I am pretty sure that a combo of citation management, PDF management, PDF viewing, and PDF annotating is really not possible on a device like iPad (and certainly not iPhone). We came to the conclusion that this was not even feasible on a normal computer or laptop without compromising too much. There's a limited number of keyboard shortcuts and menu items that you can offer, and the choices for those are very different for a citation manager and a PDF viewer/annotator. This is the reason we went for separate apps. With much less interaction you're much more restricted in what you can do, so you need to be much more focused on a single feature, you can't work with menu items and keyboard shortcuts. PDF organize + viewer/annotator can be combined, but citation manager would be a different app. And lots of functions of BibDesk are really not appropriate for iPads at all. I'm not saying that a complete duplication is needed or even sensible for the iPad, but I certainly can of think of scenarios where it would make sense to edit your bibliographic data on your iPad. If I read a PDF with the hypothetical PDF viewer, I probably also want to be able to change things for this specific entry like keywords or marking it as read and so on. Being able to edit the BibTeX data certainly makes sense. Other parts of BibDesk like the templating and export system, the LaTeX preview or z39.50 import are probably much less useful. But in the end, this just means that it would need a completely new app, which you said right from the beginning. Simon -- Simon Spiegel Steinhaldenstr. 50 8002 Zürich Telephon: ++41 44 451 5334 Mobophon: ++41 76 459 60 39 http://www.simifilm.ch „Goethen getroffen. Beeindruckt.“ Unbekannt -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On 28 Jan 2010, at 12:07, Simon Spiegel wrote: I'm not saying that a complete duplication is needed or even sensible for the iPad, but I certainly can of think of scenarios where it would make sense to edit your bibliographic data on your iPad. presumably one can work with the raw text file? What sounds like the opportunity here is not so much BiBDesk for iPad but something like Dropbox allowing editing of text files. or should one NOT edit the bib file with eg BBEdit? -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] BibDesk for iPad?
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 12:25, Christiaan Hofman cmhof...@gmail.com wrote: I am pretty sure that a combo of citation management, PDF management, PDF viewing, and PDF annotating is really not possible on a device like iPad (and certainly not iPhone). We came to the conclusion that this was not even feasible on a normal computer or laptop without compromising too much. There's a limited number of keyboard shortcuts and menu items that you can offer, and the choices for those are very different for a citation manager and a PDF viewer/annotator. This is the reason we went for separate apps. With much less interaction you're much more restricted in what you can do, so you need to be much more focused on a single feature, you can't work with menu items and keyboard shortcuts. PDF organize + viewer/annotator can be combined, but citation manager would be a different app. And lots of functions of BibDesk are really not appropriate for iPads at all. I think the situation on the iPad vs. a laptop/desktop computer is made very different by: - the kind of interface you have - the lack of file system (which, as a side note, drives me nuts: why is it impossible to save the PDFs I view on my iPhone through Safari? Anyhow, back to the point:). So on OS X you have menus and keyboard shortcuts as the main means of interaction; and those are unique but also (mostly) static for each app. In this situation the solution of having separate apps for each task and switching between them through the file system (save a file, open it with another app) is how you do things. On iPad/iPhone, there is no menu and the UI can therefore completely change inside the same app. Once example is the new book reader: there is the shelf, aimed at choosing your book; there is the reader, aimed at flicking through the pages; and there is the bookstore, aimed at buying books. All those are three completely separate tasks, with completely different interfaces. Essentially they are three different apps, but the lack of access to the file system prevents you to have a bookstore app which would store an eBook that you could then double click to file it in your library or open it in the reader. It has to be all integrated in one app. Whether you think this is a good thing or not is probably a matter of taste and proficiency with computers, but in any case that's the way it is. A BibDesk + Skim equivalent for the iPad (and I think it could even also work in the iPhone, UI wise) could work in a very similar way: - opening the app shows your library with a list of records - taping an item allows to edit its details (similarly to an address book card): author, title, but also group etc. - taping a PDF icon either in the list or in each items details opens the PDF reader/annotator - taping a search icon brings you to the web / a search interface i.e. three different apps in one. This, of course, is wishful thinking. I would love and definitively have a use for such an app but I understand that it represents a tremendous amount of work and that it basically means restarting from scratch code-wise. Given the business model of the iPhone/iPad, charging for it wouldn't make as much difference on it does on the Mac: most good apps are shareware on the iPhone while many apps are excellent and free on the Mac (BibDesk being a prime example). JiHO --- http://maururu.net -- The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
