Re: [Ebib-users] feature request

[Joost K. <joo...@fa...>]

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:08:23 +0200, "Viktor Tron" <tr...@mo...>
said:

[Message posted to ebib-users and Cc:'ed to the OP. If you reply to
this, please to the same, as Viktor is not on the list.]

> I just heard of ebib now on the Ling-TeX list, and quite like it.
> But the usual way I use bib-files these days is with Googlescholar, which
> gives you a bibtex format entry.
> At the moment, this can be directly pasted into the bib-file but in order
> to have a nice edit possibility in the very same file within ebib, the  
> ebib bib buffer should be saved
> before pasting to the bib-file which should then be saved and then reread 
> to ebib.
> This hassle makes this bibtex-ebib interaction virtually unworkable.

Yup, I can see that...

> I think it would be nice if such a bibtex-entry could be pasted directly  
> into an ebib.

That's actually a good idea.

> The particular way I imagine this would be similar to pressing 'a' in the 
> index buffer,
> in particular I recommand 'i' for import. Pressing 'i' would give a blank 
> buffer below,
> into which one or more bibtex entries could be pasted.
> Once the entry is pasted, a keypress (say c for compile) in this  
> raw-bibtex buffer
> would parse the entry and reopen (the last one) in the same way as a  
> (partially specified) newly added entry
> in ebib.
> This would then make it possible to flexibly correct particular  
> bibtex-format entries (ones given by
> googlescholar are sometimes faulty or partial) in the nice ebib way.

There are basically two ways to do this. The first would be not to use a
special Ebib buffer, and just allow the user to import BibTeX entries
from any Emacs buffer. In that way, you can simply paste the
GoogleScholar BibTeX entry into say the *scratch* buffer, and import it
from there. The disadvantage is that you'd need to type 'M-x
ebib-import' or something in order to import the entries. (Unless of
course you bind that command to a key.)

The second way would be to use a special Ebib buffer. I would still make
that a text buffer, though, because a user might want to make a few
changes to the entry before importing it. That means that there wouldn't
be much of a difference with the first method for the user, other than
the fact that I can bind the actual import command to some key combo
myself, instead of letting the user do that.

I have a (tiny) preference for the first method, if only because I don't
see the need to create an additional Ebib buffer for something that can
be done from any (text) buffer. But I'm open to suggestions on this one.
(In principle, I could (re-)use the multiline buffer, but that one is
already used for other things, and keeping track of them is getting to
be a kludge...)

One feature I'll also add is the ability to read BibTeX entries from the
region rather than from the whole buffer. That'll give the option to
import only part of the BibTeX entries in a buffer. That might come in
handy if you want to import only some entries from a file: you can open
the file and mark and import the entries you want.

Joost


-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments
-- 
  Joost Kremers
  Life has its moments