Searching_the_Web

Browsing in BibDesk

BibDesk has built-in support for searching the internet for bibliography information. You can browse the web from within BibDesk, and BibDesk will try to extract citations from the pages you visit, which you can then add to your database with a single click.

To browse the web in BibDesk, select the Web Group in the group side pane. Enter a URL in the URL field and hit Enter, or choose a bookmark from the Bookmarks menu.

When you visit a page containing bibliography information, BibDesk will try to scrape the page to extract the citations, and lists the parsed items it found below the browser view. BibDesk currently has support for Google Scholar, HCite, CiteULike, ACMDL, Hubmed, and Spires, as well as text pages containing string formats BibDesk understands, such as bibTeX, Medline, and RIS.

For Google Scholar, you need to turn on the BibTeX links. Go to the "Scholar Preferences" in the Bibliography Manager section select to show links to import citations, and choose BibTeX from the popup. If you use this feature a lot, Google Scholar may get blocked in BibDesk. To prevent this, you may set the BDSKDisableGoogleScholarListParsing hidden preference. You can still get individual items by following the BibTeX links.

Adding Citations from the Web to Your Database

When BibDesk has found citations on the web page you visit, adding those citations to your database is very simple. All you need to do is hit the Import button for the item and you're done!

Adding Bookmarks

When you find a site that contains relevant bibliography information you can easily add a bookmark so you can come back to the site later. To add a bookmark, choose Bookmarks > Add Bookmark... when you visit the page and enter a label for the bookmark. You can also use the contextual menu in the built-in browser to add bookmarks. You can later manage the bookmarks by choosing Bookmarks > Edit Bookmarks....

BibDesk adds several bookmarks by default for you. If you ever want to reset your Bookmarks menu to BibDesk's default, you should remove the file ~/Library/Application Support/BibDesk/Bookmarks.plist and restart BibDesk.