Some time ago, some one, it might have been CPHennessy, asked about bibliographic table (reference table) generation and if the current process could work with the new Citeproc formating process.
I have been thinking about this. The answer is partially with changes to the current table generation. Or yes with big changes. I am not suggesting that what I explain here is a good or bad idea, I am just trying to answer the question. I will explain how I understand the process to work now. The table generation process works in the same manner for each of the table types - Bibliography, Contents, Illustrations,Index Objects etc. As we have discussed many times, when a citation is inserted into a document, the complete bibliographic data record is included with it. When the user selects Insert->'Indexes and Tables'->'Indexes and Tables'->tab=Index/Table:type=Bibliography a xml structure is setup in the document that contains the table field entries selected in the Insert->'Indexes and Tables'->'Indexes and Tables'->tab=Entries panel and the character formated selected for each field entry, also selected in that panel. For an example of this table see - http://bibliographic.openoffice.org/enhanced-save-package-description.html The table build process then finds each citation, and builds the reference table text line for each reference from the format description just described. At some stage in the process duplicate citations are ignored or removed and the the whole table is sorted. It is then complete and can be displayed in the document. How can this process be used with Citeproc ? First if we maintained the old citation structure for each citation (or at least for the first use of each reference) along with the new proposed structures then the current table generation process can pick up the data from the references, but would ignore the format from the Citeproc process. But to use the Citeproc formating? The table generation facility is changed to make an exception of the bibliographic so that the table collects only one field from the citations imbeded in the document - the fully formated reference table entry (which we place with each citation (or at least for the first use of each reference). The Insert->'Indexes and Tables'->'Indexes and Tables'->tab='Entries panel' would be disabled for bibliographic tables. To do this would require changes to the table field types being used, because currently it only collects the plain text, and applies a single defined character format to it for display. To display a formated reference table line means it would have to support fully formated text with bold, underlining and italic components. But even this is not quite enough - A common requirement of reference tables is that works of the same author are listed so the a Author's name appears once and the subsequent entries have dashes - Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities (London:Penguin Books, 2000) ——— Nicholas Nickelby, (London: Penguin Books, 1956) ——— Oliver Twist, (New York, Random House,1965) And what about sort groups ? To solve these issues we have to have some process which communicates table format options from the users' selected style to the table generation process. (This could be done by including a reference table post processing macro with the style definition package.) But is this worth doing ? We would be using a a very small part of the current table processing, disabling its entry formating and reducing the options for or complicating the table sorting and formating process that Citproc can do very easily. What I see as a ideal situation and user interface that works with Citeproc but looks very similar to the current process. (Or at least looks the same as the other tables if it is improved). We would need a process that converts the Citeproc style format to a structure the Insert->'Indexes and Tables'->'Indexes and Tables'->tab='Entries panel' (with additions) could modify via its' GUI interface and writes user modifications to format back to the Citproc format description. So that would preserve a seamless look and feel and have the best of both world. regards David David --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
