Re: [dev-biblio] more on word support
On Jul 16, 2006, at 10:23 PM, pt wrote: 1. An external reference database / research tool that could be used with both Word and Writer. It should be able to store not jsut metadata but full-text articles, notes, webpage snapshots other supporting data. Right. I think this is slowly being taken care of by others. The Firefox Scholar plug-in (aka SmartFox), for example, is likely to be really good, and will be free (GPL). They also have interest in serving as data sources for word-processors. I am still not convinced that storing reference details with a document is a good idea; the biggest reason is that even if interop can be sorted out this will still only work with Word 2007 and a future version of Writer. Why? I'm pretty sure there must be a way to store that data in earlier versions of the apps. Apps like Endnote, for example, have been embedding data in Word docs for years. It's just never been standardized. In our case, in any case, we're not dependent on embedded data; it's a convenience. I think Microsoft, by contrast, is dependent on it. The difference is that I'll be pushing to ensure that the identifiers for citations are uris, where we recommend best practices to make it easy to reconstitute data as needed. MS, by contrast, is using dumb local natural language ids for linking. E.g. they always assume the data is embedded. 2. An external CSL editor that can export compiled XSLT for Word - and maybe Python code for Writer. (I don't agree with Bruce that this needs to be built in to Word or that the size of XSLT files is a problem since they would be auto-generated from a CSL file). The code to generate static XSLTs of this sort is not easy to write, and it makes everything more, not less, complex, doesn't it? For example, how do styles get stored, and how would a user add a style? What happens if you need to update a style? CSL is simple enough that it's really not hard to write a parser for it. The SmartFox guys will be doing just that using Javascript (E4X to be specific, which has XML extensions). 3. Interoperable citation markers that will allow cross-word-processor teams to work together. Microsoft are clearly not going to be swayed by lobbying, and it's not clear to me how much Sun will do to push this stuff through. MS won't be swayed to do the right thing aside from what's in their own interest. I am trying to point out to them where those overlap (for example, they don't support footnotes within the citation fields; am making sure that's not a file format restriction, which would be bad for them too), and am optimistic interop will be fairly good. FWIW, MS is using standard field support to implement the coding for citations. As for OOo and Sun, I think we need at minimum to get the new citation field implemented and exposed so that projects like your's and Matthias' can easily interest with it. Why not concentrate on building stand-alone tools that work with the current installed base of word processing software? That is, build a better EndNote. I agree. (That's what I hope my team will be doing over the coming year - in alignment with the work going on here) Cool. You should hook up with the SmartFox guys. They'll be releasing a beta sometime in the next few months, complete with support for CSL and the biblio schema I've been working on ;-). Bruce - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [dev-biblio] more on word support
I read through the exchange and I think you put your position very well and the response was rather defensively or evasive. David On Saturday 15 July 2006 10:52 am, Bruce D'Arcus wrote: So based on back-and-forth with the product manager responsible for the new bib support in Word 2007*: 1) they won't support footnote/endnote citations in v1 2) seems (?) they don't support first/subsequent distinctions in author-year 3) they think it perfectly fine to have styles implemented in raw XSLT (they don't appear interested in using CSL or a CSL-like abstraction) So this tells us where we can differentiate OOo. There's going to be a lot of frustration with their default support, particularly among the historians. Also, on 3, it should possible to swap in a citeproc-like solution, and so get support for CSL in Word through the back door. Hmm ... wonder if I should try to productize citeproc for the Word market? ;-) Bruce * see comments at http://blogs.msdn.com/joe_friend/archive/2006/07/13/664960.aspx - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- --- David N. Wilson Co-Project Lead for the Bibliographic OpenOffice Project http://bibliographic.openoffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [dev-biblio] more on word support
On Jul 16, 2006, at 5:38 AM, David Wilson wrote: I read through the exchange and I think you put your position very well and the response was rather defensively or evasive. I think it's worth paying close attention to what they've done not just for interoperability's sake, but also because they seem to have very similar design goals, as well as constraints. To quote Jennifer: Please keep in mind that this is a v1 feature, and our first goal was to make the tools extremely useful for high school and college students. We designed this feature to be a platform so that anyone – us, in later versions; any 3rd party like EndNote; or you(!) could build tools on top of ours. That’s why everything in this feature is XML-based. Certainly there are more things we could have delivered with more time and person-power, but we tried first to make sure our platform was solid. And I think with some caveats, they will have met these goals. I am particularly intrigued by their no-local-database approach, where the editing forms are only editing XML data embedded in the file package. This is something we need to seriously consider for OOo (though we can do a better job). Bruce - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [dev-biblio] more on word support
On Sunday 16 July 2006 9:47 pm, Bruce D'Arcus wrote: And I think with some caveats, they will have met these goals. I am particularly intrigued by their no-local-database approach, where the editing forms are only editing XML data embedded in the file package. This is something we need to seriously consider for OOo (though we can do a better job). I have been think about this question, what do we need a local SQL database for? And how does it need to be integrated with the Bibliographic application? SQL databases are good for very large quantities of data, and would essential if the the volume of data was greater that could could be held in list in memory.(which is now a very big list) This would not be the case for the citations to a single document. SQL databases are also good for sharing data and update facilities amongst many users. An SQL database is not necessary to store the local citations in documents even temporarily as they are worked on. However Bib users may want to store collections of citations, in some manner, and SQL databases are probably a mechanism we may want to support. If only to provide a browse and 'insert into document' function, as would do for internet / remote database search and insert. What the no-local-database approach, where the editing forms are only editing XML data embedded in the file package implies though is OOoBib would NOT be providing a mechanism or maintaining your collection of citations. That is, looking through the collection and spotting a error and fixing it. Perhaps suggest we advise people to use one of the many third party tools for that purpose. We can certainly do this in the early stages as we develop the application. One of the difficulties with a building a close connection between the xml local storage and a SQL database, is that the xml data will support formatted text, included embedded document objects (mathematical formula etc). SQL database are ascii based. Of course a one way to deal with this is to have a ascii version of each potentially formatted field and the formatted version. (you need the plain ascii field for searching) If we want to store and maintain bibliographic collections it would be easier if the collections were stored in a xml database such as eXist, and the field conversion problems disappear. I am thinking that the xml database for local storage of citation collections would be the a good choice as the some the local editing tools would work in the same way on the in-document citations and the xml database citations. This is least work option for storage of collections of citations. With a SQL database we would need to build two sets of editing tools - xml and SQL. I do not have any firm ideas about this, these are just my musings. David -- --- David N. Wilson Co-Project Lead for the Bibliographic OpenOffice Project http://bibliographic.openoffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[dev-biblio] more on word support
So based on back-and-forth with the product manager responsible for the new bib support in Word 2007*: 1) they won't support footnote/endnote citations in v1 2) seems (?) they don't support first/subsequent distinctions in author-year 3) they think it perfectly fine to have styles implemented in raw XSLT (they don't appear interested in using CSL or a CSL-like abstraction) So this tells us where we can differentiate OOo. There's going to be a lot of frustration with their default support, particularly among the historians. Also, on 3, it should possible to swap in a citeproc-like solution, and so get support for CSL in Word through the back door. Hmm ... wonder if I should try to productize citeproc for the Word market? ;-) Bruce * see comments at http://blogs.msdn.com/joe_friend/archive/2006/07/13/664960.aspx - To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
