[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > As a scholar in the humanities, I have been hoping for years > that OOo would introduce some kind of decent bibliographic support. For > > I'm embarking on a new research project now, and for the first time in 5 > years I've kept the windows partition on my new computer; I'm going to > install MS Office and EndNote. I hate to do it, but I feel I really have > no other choice.
I have actually went now through the similar process of disappointment with OpenOffice.org and I am humbly returning to LyX (http://www.lyx.org; editor using LaTeX as its back-end). I am PhD candidate in sociology/criminology, so my requirements are probably similar to yours. Although BibTeX is far from perfect (Bruce will probably reply in litany of problems with BibTeX and he is right), with whatever limitations it has it just works. If you are starting new project, so the downstream compatibility is not the biggest issue, I would strongly suggest you to take a look. The next step after installation is to subscribe to lyx-users@lists.lyx.org (send empty email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) -- I consider the community around LyX to be one of the most pleasant and newbie-friendly on the Internet. Concerning the future of whole OOo-bibliographic project -- isn't it the time to think about Plan B? I have still in the back of my bran, that there actually IS working bibliographic manager for OpenOffice.org; I mean, Bibus <http://bibus-biblio.sourceforge.net/>. It is ugly as hell, its database structure is ugly as hell (just slightly upgraded current OOo Bibliography), etc. but it works. Would it be possible to enter into some kind of negotiation with its maintainer (Pierre Martineau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) with this plan: 1) we could offer him nice hosting at openoffice.org (CVS, web, list, issuezilla, etc.) plus PR value of being the official bibliographic support for OOo. 2) the work should begin with making sure that bibus actually works on all platforms were OOo is officially support without any terrible obstacles (what's the status of SQLlite support in OOo? is there any development on the sqlite-odbc driver? I don't know, but these were the crucial problems for me, why I haven't switched to bibus myself yet). 3) then we would begin refactoring his code (it's Python after all, so it should be possible to find people who can do it) to support better Metadata -- so far probably only in Bibus, until there will be better support in C-code of OOo for it. 4) If the project will be successful and we will attract more users from academia to use OOo for their scholarly work, we can use it as a leverage against Sun to get some real support from them. Basically, what I am suggesting is the same what Linus did when he was refactoring Minix (to use current buzzword) to serve his goals, which is how Linux was born. Best, Matej -- GPG Finger: 89EF 4BC6 288A BF43 1BAB 25C3 E09F EF25 D964 84AC http://www.ceplovi.cz/matej/blog/, Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 23 Marion St. #3, (617) 876-1259, ICQ 132822213 Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. -- David L. Goodstein "States of Matter" --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
