LaTex Citations and BibTeX support

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oscar

08 Mar, 2011 04:21 PM

2 problems:

  1. The "works with everything" manuscripts tool does not work with the TexWorks LaTeX editor.
  2. LaTeX citations are only available as '\cite{}' - a lot of people use '\citep{}' when inserting citations in the text. It would be nice to have the option...

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  1. Support Staff 62 Posted by charles on 31 Mar, 2011 03:36 AM

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    @alex could you start a separate discussion and send your library and the word file (before the ? appeared). Thanks!

  2. 63 Posted by Matt on 31 Mar, 2011 03:40 AM

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    While this is still something we keep in mind and may offer in the future, it is actually not for the near future. To some extent, if everyone used the same citekey, it would make collaboration on manuscript writing easier, and that has been our priority for launch, and our reasoning behind the universal citekey approach.

    Yes, Papers2 also broke the Papers1 citekeys, but that was for a better future.

    The other issue with letting the user define their own citekey format is that it seems there are as many systems as there are BibTeX users, so any system will also be imperfect and will only result in more requests and issues. Not that we are afraid of complaints and requests (the Papers2 launch demonstrates this), but we have to be committed to the feature if/when we are going to have it.

    If defining my own cite keys won't be supported until the distant future, then I won't consider using Papers until the distant future has arrived. (Glad I didn't go ahead with the purchase! I'll check on Papers's status in a couple years.) Honestly, I don't particularly care if other people's cite keys are the same as mine. If I want to collaborate with them, there's a slimmer chance that they're using Papers for bibliographic management versus something like BibDesk or JabRef or Mendeley (and even then, they're probably using EndNote). I just want to write my papers with the citekeys that I've known and loved for years. Sorry Papers.app, I'm sticking with BibDesk+Skim on OS X and Dropbox+PDF Expert on the iPad.

    Charles, I don't understand your comment about there being "as many systems as there are BibTeX users, so any system will also be imperfect and will only result in more requests and issues". Are you saying there are issues with defining your own citekey? If so, I don't know of any other BibTeX library management application that forces a citekey on the user, and I can't imagine why there would be issues with defining your own. Just keep things simple—All that matters is that you can compile the LaTeX doc on your computer!

  3. 64 Posted by ben on 31 Mar, 2011 12:47 PM

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    Thanks for 2.0.3 - or the updated notes on citekeys - or both. This is a really big help.

    cheers

    Ben

  4. Support Staff 65 Posted by charles on 31 Mar, 2011 04:57 PM

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    If defining my own cite keys won't be supported until the distant future, then I won't consider using Papers until the distant future has arrived.

    Just to clarify in case my response was confusing: you can still edit your own citekeys manually for each paper using the inspector, it's just the automatic citekey creation that only supports 1 format (FirstAuthor:Year). If you import the entries from BibTeX, they'll get that value as well.

    Charles, I don't understand your comment about there being "as many systems as there are BibTeX users, so any system will also be imperfect and will only result in more requests and issues".

    What I meant here is that we need a way to support the use of any piece of metadata for citekey creation. It seems the default in BibTeX in FirstAuthor:YearXX, so that's what we used. Note that we could have chosen something more akin to Endnote maybe, but typical Endnote users do not care what their citekey looks like, so we figured choosing this option would please a significant fraction of the user that care, which are the BibTeX users ;-).

    But for other formats, we need to add the UI to support more options. It's not impossible, and in fact we already do it for file naming. But it's still quite a bit of work. And we know some have for example requested things like "Only the first author if no other publication with this first author, otherwise the first 2 authors, and otherwise also add the first word of the title etc..." kind of format. I don't know how far we need to go into this. Like you say, something simple could be enough to get most people covered, but that's indeed already the reasoning for 'FirstAuthor:YearXX'. Instead of spending resources on improving this aspect of the program, we have for now focused on improving the experience with Magic Manuscripts, that do not require you to remember the citekey.

    We totally understand that we can't please all workflows, and that Papers may not work for you (at least for now). Your feedback is still very much appreciated, particularly that you took time to answer even though you basically won't use Papers anymore!

    NB: btw, we extended the trial period another 30 days for our early adopters.

  5. 66 Posted by m.a.peletier on 01 Apr, 2011 11:07 AM

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    But for other formats, we need to add the UI to support more options. It's not impossible, and in fact we already do it for file naming. But it's still quite a bit of work. And we know some have for example requested things like "Only the first author if no other publication with this first author, otherwise the first 2 authors, and otherwise also add the first word of the title etc..." kind of format. I don't know how far we need to go into this.

    Have a look at the UI of BibDesk. It provides four predefined options of the type you just described, and a 'custom' option that allows the user to piece together the key by concatenating predefined elements. See http://bibdesk.sourceforge.net/manual/BibDesk%20Help_91.html#SEC159 for the full list of possible elements. This would already be a tremendous step forward.

  6. Support Staff 67 Posted by charles on 01 Apr, 2011 05:42 PM

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    Have a look at the UI of BibDesk.

    Thanks for the link! It's indeed something we have looked at (briefly, I must admit), and why we have chosen the current citekey format. Like I said, it's not impossible, it's just not something that was on the top of the list. Still not on top-top of the list, but getting closer as we clear up the todo list ;-)

  7. 68 Posted by László on 04 Apr, 2011 12:16 AM

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    Hi,
    Sorry if I just could not Google up useful stuff on this that is already out there, but are Magic Manuscript supposed to work with Lyx now, or others have problems too? Admittedly, I tried to use the new Lyx 2.0 (rc2), but instead of useful insertion, I only got the citekey inserted as {citekey}. Or I just don't know how to get this work?

    Thanks for any help,

    Laszlo

  8. Support Staff 69 Posted by charles on 04 Apr, 2011 09:18 PM

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    Hi Laszlo,

    So you mean you need it inserted as a BibTeX cite command? In this case, you need to set the citekey format of your choice, see more info about BibTeX integration on our Knowledge Base at this URL: http://support.mekentosj.com/kb/pro-tips/bibtex-and-magic-manuscripts

    charles

  9. 70 Posted by László Sándor on 04 Apr, 2011 09:25 PM

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    Thanks, Charles, but it is set up like that. And still I could only insert
    "{citekey}" into LyX --- though your code (or LyX?) was even intelligent to
    "note" that I did not mean to write a LaTeX command but actual curly braces,
    so inserted "\{citekey\}" in the raw TeX source code...

    Thanks for looking into this,

    Laszlo

    On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 5:19 PM, charles <
    [email blocked]> wrote:

  10. Support Staff 71 Posted by charles on 04 Apr, 2011 09:52 PM

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    @Laszlo Sorry I just realized. It's a bug I identified this week, where for certain apps, the setting is ignored in 2.0.3. I am not sure how I missed that obvious bug with Lyx when releasing last week, I apologize for that. But I fixed it already and it will be in Papers 2.0.4 this week.

    I'll be curious to see if the brackets get escaped, as this would seem like Lyx trying to be too clever, I am afraid... Running on Lyx 1.6.4 did not escape the brackets.

  11. 72 Posted by papers.michael on 06 Apr, 2011 02:31 AM

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    It seems like you provide some ready-rolled wrappers for the cite-key: \citep{myCiteKey}, \citet{myCiteKey}... One great feature of BibDesk is that it allows you roll-your-own wrapper via their Template option.

    Why is this relevant? I write LaTeX using Scrivener's MultiMarkDown (MMD) integration. Currently, the MMD equivalent of \citep{myCiteKey) is [][#myCiteKey]. I don't expect you to support every such syntax, especially since they can change without notice, but I would like to be able to modify these templates myself, as I can in BibDesk (via files in Application Support subfolder).

    Is there someplace in the current release where I can modify this wrapper?

  12. 73 Posted by ben on 06 Apr, 2011 03:58 AM

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    G'day,

    I've just been pulled up by a reviewer because a citation style (Chicago) require the doi when appropriate. I have the doi in most of my Papers citations, but when I Copy As... Bibtex Record the doi isn't included in the clipboard.

    I do note that if I export the record as a Complete record it is included, but not if I copy using right click or whatever.

    I don't know if this can make it in for this weeks update, but at some stage that would be great.

    cheers

    Ben

  13. 74 Posted by Cumhur Erkut on 06 Apr, 2011 08:23 AM

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    Somewhere in this discussion there was a wish about supporting emacs-app in Magic Manuscripts. It is a 64-bit MacPorts build, easier to maintain than the other Mac-emacsen. I repeat this wish, also based on the call on your BibTex guide to send you the desired applications to be supported. Currently, only copy to clipboard works ( the whole reference is inserted) and does not enlist the working copy in the manuscript. Even papers2.0 link would be enough.

    http://www.macports.org/ports.php?by=name&amp;substr=emacs-app

    Thank you.

  14. Support Staff 75 Posted by charles on 08 Apr, 2011 06:02 AM

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    I don't expect you to support every such syntax, especially since they can change without notice, but I would like to be able to modify these templates myself, as I can in BibDesk (via files in Application Support subfolder).

    At the moment, this is not possible, though it's something that may be supported at some point, but for now, it's limited by the way we parse those things back (I realize you are only talking about insertion, but it has implications on also parsing them for the supported applications, we have to go a little slower than you'd probably like!). In the meantime, we'll add the MMD different syntaxes in the popup menu. It seems these are really the only missing format at this point, and then we'd have 99% use cases covered it seems.

    Note on Scrivener, just in case. See this discussion: http://support.mekentosj.com/discussions/suggestions/20-scrivener-2...

    There is also more information about Scrivener integration in this entry on our Knowledge Base: http://support.mekentosj.com/kb/getting-started/scrivener-and-magic...

  15. Support Staff 76 Posted by charles on 08 Apr, 2011 06:08 AM

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    I do note that if I export the record as a Complete record it is included, but not if I copy using right click or whatever.

    Sorry about that. The problem is for most people, the copy as is meant for quick creation of a lightweight bibtex entry. And in fact, the content of that record is based on feedback we got from BibTeX user. For more "serious" work, like formatting a whole manuscript, export seems more appropriate. We'll see if we can find an elegant way to support more options, but at the moment, export is the best workaround.

  16. Support Staff 77 Posted by charles on 08 Apr, 2011 06:26 AM

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    Somewhere in this discussion there was a wish about supporting emacs-app in Magic Manuscripts. It is a 64-bit MacPorts build, easier to maintain than the other Mac-emacsen. I repeat this wish, also based on the call on your BibTex guide to send you the desired applications to be supported.

    I would rather not install Macports and all just to get the app, but if you had a binary of the app itself, that would be sufficient for me to add support, I think. In fact, with just the bundle identifier that could work. If you had the possibility to beta-test this, I could send you more instructions, then please send an email to charles at mekentosj dot com.

  17. 78 Posted by Cumhur Erkut on 08 Apr, 2011 06:53 AM

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    @charles#77 Fair enough, thanks for looking into this in first place.

    Bundle ID: org.gnu.Emacs,
    Bundle version: 9.0

    If not working, I'd be happy to either put Emacs.app to a dropbox folder and share with you, or beta-test this. I'll contact you for that.
    Thanks so much.

  18. 79 Posted by papers.michael on 08 Apr, 2011 01:30 PM

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    In the meantime, we'll add the MMD different syntaxes in the popup menu. It seems these are really the only missing format at this point, and then we'd have 99% use cases covered it seems.

    That would be a perfect solution as far as I'm concerned!

    Cheers!
    Mike

  19. mek closed this discussion on 07 May, 2011 11:54 PM.

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