Re: [Bibdesk-develop] Controlled Vocabulary

[Andrew C. <and...@gm...>]

On Apr 28, 2008, at 7:57 PM, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
> In article <9CE...@ma...>,
> "Adam M. Goldstein" <a.m...@ma...> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 28, 2008, at 6:49 PM, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
>>
>>> In article <7D4...@ma...>,
>>> "Adam M. Goldstein" <a.m...@ma...> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Apr 28, 2008, at 1:28 PM, James Howison wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> There are obviously pros and cons of controlled vocabulary.  The
>>>>> major
>>>>> one, from the perspective of an open source project, is that
>>>>> maintaining them is administration heavy.  I don't think it's
>>>>> appropriate for BibDesk, or any application, to take on that task.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now if there were a source of a known controlled vocabulary,  
>>>>> managed
>>>>> by someone else and available online in a  machine parse-able
>>>>> format,
>>>>> then one could conceivably design a field in BibDesk that would  
>>>>> only
>>>>> accept keywords in that vocabulary (and perhaps make cross-
>>>>> referencing
>>>>> suggestions, depending on the semantic machinery provided by the
>>>>> keyword controlling authority).  Was that more what you had in  
>>>>> mind?
>>>>>
>>>>> --J
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think it would be nice just to have the ability to create a
>>>> controlled vocabulary for one's self, that is, to have a term list
>>>> independent of the keywords that are entered into the keyword  
>>>> fields.
>>>> Maybe a CSV file could be loaded in.
>>>
>>> What would you do with it?
>>
>> You would select terms from it to put in as key words. Rather than
>> thinking up new key words every time, you would select from the list,
>> which would keep your usage consistent.
>
> Okay, I more-or-less use autocompletion in the editor for this (as you
> mention later).  I think that's a pretty good solution for new entries
> or manual edits, but the OP wanted something that would help with
> downloaded entries.  I'm not sure what can be done with those,  
> although
> I agree with him that keyword pollution is a problem.
>
>>>> Note that you can do something somewhat like controlling your own
>>>> vocabulary by setting the groups pane to show keywords; Then you  
>>>> see
>>>> things like "Philosophy" and "philosophy," and you can consolidate.
>>>
>>> It's still unclear to me what the OP is asking for, so I've avoided
>>> commenting on it.  I believe groups are case-insensitive, though, so
>>> the
>>> scenario you mention shouldn't occur.
>>
>> What about keywords? That is what I use for subject indexing my BT
>> records. I am pretty sure I do have this problem.
>
> Nope, keywords are compared case-insensitively.  I just added
> "ADSORPTION" to an item, and it was immediately visible in the
> "adsorption" keyword group.  If that's not working for you, it's a  
> bug.
> Did I misunderstand the problem?
>
> -- 
> adam

Thanks for responding everyone. My original idea was a user created  
controlled vocabulary and the option of stripping all keywords on  
imported files (RIS or .bib). The weirdness of what authors use as  
keywords is crazy. In fact, just the power to strip incoming keywords  
would be a help. I didn't record the original presentation, but my  
blog post can be read here:

http://andrewcerniglia.com/?p=39

Again, this is no biggie. I appreciate the developers contribution.  
The professor that uses EndNote said he's buying a Mac :-).

-- 
andrew j. cerniglia