On 8 Oct 2007, at 12:57 PM, jiho wrote: > > On 2007-October-08 , at 11:38 , Christiaan Hofman wrote: >> On 8 Oct 2007, at 9:16 AM, jiho wrote: >>> On 2007-October-08 , at 08:38 , Simon Spiegel wrote: >>>>> Just out of curiosity, what would help the non-LaTeX users the >>>>> most? >>>>> People have mentioned integration with word processors. What >>>>> would it >>>>> look like? Basic RTF scanning wouldn't be too hard. A UI for >>>>> templates would be nice, too. >>>> >>>> An UI would certainly be a good idea. I don't think that many users >>>> would use BibDesk with its current template system even if it had >>>> RTF >>>> scanning. Toom many users would be scared by it. I'd use it, but >>>> I'm >>>> certainly not the average user. I also think that the template >>>> system >>>> needs improvement to deal with more complex styles. For example >>>> more >>>> options how to deal with multiple authors/editors or with stuff >>>> like >>>> 'ibid.'. >>> >> >> I doubt whether the template mechanism needs to be more complex, it >> is already quite complex and capable. See also below. For example, it >> is quite capable to do something like the standard bibtex styles (the >> Wiki has templates for abbrv.bst and plain.bst). >> >>> I also think a GUI to build bibliography styles would be very >>> welcome. I suggested this in back in 2005: >>> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php? >>> msg_id=9787bb9212cc90ffa59662781198cb8a%40gmail.com >>> [NB: sorry the links to the images are broken, I lost them] >>> and it was considered too big to be in the scope of BibDesk at that >>> time. The context seems to be the same today: people want tighter >>> integration between bibdesk and their word processors and, to do >>> that, a way to scan the document for citations as well as to format >>> the references list is needed. >>> If such a UI is build, I would love it to output rtf templates as >>> well as something more LaTeX related (since apparently most current >>> users of BD use LaTeX). At the time of my first post, I thought >>> about >>> writing .bst files, with BibTeX code, but the fact that it is a new >>> language, and a not very user-friendly one, adds some complexity. >>> Now, if this UI could output files suitable for biblatex, which is >>> much easier to use than bibtex, it would be great. >> I personally have trouble imagining a workable UI to build templates. >> The template syntax is quite complex, and the only UIs I can think of >> would either be able to handle only simple templates, or they would >> be more bothersome to work with than the raw template itself. I don't >> know how the other managers (like Bookends and Sente) work with their >> "template" UI, but I guess they only use a much simplified syntax (in >> our terms, the equivalent of only value tags). > > I don't know the RTF template mechanism well but I was thinking at a > UI like this (very quick draft): > http://jo.irisson.free.fr/dropbox/bd_styles_ui.png > - On the left, a list of publication types, taken from BibDesk > - On the right: > . a list of fields, which changes according to the pub type, with > mandatory bibtex fields in red. The list of fields is also taken from > bibdesk (custom fields appear here) > . an "Inline citations" and a "References list" fields in which > tokens can be drag and dropped to select what will be printed in each > case. Plus, one can also write in these sections (but I cannot find > how to do this in interface builder). Therefore one can write: > [Author], [Year]. [Title], In: [Journal] etc. > . an option view, with options depending on each token (here some > possible options are shown for the [Author] token, which is probably > the most complex to print). > . a preview of what the output will look like > I think such a UI would be quite straightforward to use and could be > interfaced to many template mechanisms (BD own templates, biblatex, > bibtex etc.) > The cumbersome part with such a UI would be to do the templating for > all publication types. There are two solutions I can think of: > - never start from scratch: BD provides two of three templates to > start from, e.g. an author-year one, a numbered one etc. maybe from > the three or four classic bibtex styles > - define one reference type as a master (as shown here). The > modifications done on this master propagates the all other pub types > and then one only modifies them. > >> I think a better road for users for whom building a template is too >> complicated is to provide an (extensive) library of standard citation >> and bibliography styles. That could be done mostly by users I think. > > While this could be an efficient solution, I don't think it will be > viable if there is not an easy way to produce the templates. I have > experience in doing it for latex bibliography styles: > http://jo.irisson.free.fr/bstdatabase/ > and most styles were collected by me from publishers web pages > (actually the large majority comes from elsevier which gives one > template for all their journals: 2000 journals in the database). I > received approximately 30 submissions of new styles in two years, 10 > of which being brand new, the rest of them being downloaded from > publishers I did not visit. So I don't really consider this database > to be a success in providing people with ready made styles. > I made the information quite public when creating the database: there > are links to it from several bibtex manager software (I sent and > email to BibDesk list but you did not link to it sadly :( ), from the > wiki page on bibtex, I received emails from people on CRAN etc. > Furthermore, this was targeted to a user base larger than bibdesk > one: anyone using latex+bibtex or amsrefs or biblatex could have use > for such a database. Still, there were not enough submissions to make > it really useful in my opinion. And I think this is mostly because it > is quite difficult to produce those styles in the first place: > - writing raw bibtex is a pain > - using makebst is convoluted and inflexible > - amsrefs is easy but relies on a non bibtex database and adds an > extra step to create it from the bibtex file. plus it does not > provide a bbl equivalent in the end, making it non-standard and not > easy to provide to publishers (outside of AMS of course ;)) > - biblatex is not stable yet > > Therefore, I really think an UI simple enough for everyone to use is > necessary to grow a template library. And I would love to see such a > library grow! > > JiHO > --- > http://jo.irisson.free.fr/
Yes, something like this is basically the only workable UI I can think of myself. But it only scratches the tip of the iceberg of the capability of our templating mechanism. It only allows for value tags, no collection and condition tags. Also it does not allow modifiers (like cleaning, capitalization, adding commas after non- empty fields, etc). Most, if not all, example templates on the Wiki contain both features. And moreover the token fields do not allow for rich text, so you can't for example put the volume number in bold (which is standard in my field). So it would be a huge simplification of our templates. Also, citations and reference lists are just different templates. And sorting is not done by the template but by bibdesk, or some script generating this. So those parts should not be part of the UI. Christiaan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ Bibdesk-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
