Hi all, have downloaded the Office Beta so a few thoughts on that and
other questions Bruce posed:
I'm not so sure that complete backwards compatibility is needed, just so
long as it imported the fields as plain text, if we had a properly
working bibliography function it wouldn't take too long to amend most
documents but some sort of import (of previous bibliographies) function
is vital.
I've been playing with Microsoft Beta at Bruce's suggestion. Now I've
been using OO since version 1.01 because back then Word couldn't handle
footnotes properly (I'm an academic and with long documents Word had the
habit of not keeping footnotes on the right page) and have stuck with it
because other features like handling styles properly was there from the
beginning but if Microsoft can get a bibliography function working
properly I may find the temptation to switch back overwhelming, assuming
they've fixed the footnote problem in the last five years!.
On another question of Bruce's: no I would not give up a style editing
GUI. It's not just that I have no interest in hand coding XML (however
simple) but I don't think any of my colleagues would do either. 90% of
the time not editing the styles won't be a problem but there's always
one journal out there that wants it slightly different. Of course if
Microsoft enforces strict following of style guidelines by not allowing
any flexibility and journals fall into line because everybody is using
Word, then this may not be a problem in any event!
I've only played with the Beta a bit but here are a few thoughts. the
manage source seems good. I like being able to search quickly for a
citation. I assume the point of having the separate master list and
current list (as opposed to just one) is so that a works used can be
different from the works cited (this feature seems to be broken
currently in Word). However the insert citation seems a bit wonky. I
only have two citations so far, so a simple drop down list is fine but I
could have hundreds - or at least enough to drop down past the end of
the page making inserting a potential problem. I'll add more citations
later to see how it handles longer lists.
What exactly is the 'tag name' for? I assume its supposed to be the
unique identifier for that record. This I suppose is in response to
Bruce's query about remote and local records - it's only if that tag
name is /really/ unique that that problem does not cause a major
headache - or have I misunderstood the point about local and remote
records? I suppose this could be answered by seeing how it handles when
you have a new master record with some duplicated records (the help
claims that, "you might connect to a file on a share, on a research
colleague's computer or server, or on a Web site that is hosted by a
university or research institution" ... well we shall see), but that is
something for me to experiment with later.
Insert place holder, for those times (or people) who don't want to
interrupt a flow of writing is also a good idea.
There doesn't seem to be any way to import bibliographies from formats
other than an xml file, which is a major problem, so I've only added a
couple of references.
It doesn't appear to offer a footnote style of referencing so I can't
tell whether or not it can handle switching to and from that kind of
referencing and renumbering the footnotes.
My partner (also an academic) just saw me demoing the bib features in
Word and she was drooling. I guess non-academics (i.e. Sun) just don't
understand the pain of referencing and changing styles.
Yes I have voted for the bibliography improvements.
Regards,
Jon.
Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
Also, I have a question:
Does anyone really use the existing citation support, such that
backward compatibility is a real concern? Just wondering, because we
have it as a requirement:
<http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Bibliographic_Project's_Developer_Page#Backwards_and_Forwards_Compatibility>
Bruce
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.3/374 - Release Date: 23/06/2006
___________________________________________________________
Try the all-new Yahoo! Mail. "The New Version is radically easier to use" The Wall Street Journal
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
