Amazing Software - One Question/Suggestion

[Taylor Koles]

First, I just want to say that Hypernomicon is really a wonderful project. It's at the heart of my workflow as a philosopher, and I recommend it to everyone who is looking for database software.

My one question/suggestion: I have never really liked any of the citation managers, and I use LaTeX, so I mostly handle citations by accumulating BibTex data outside of Hypernomicon. But it occurred to me that if Hypernomicon just had a button that I could click that would take the info I'd put into the database and copy the BibTex entry to my clipboard, it would save me a ton of steps. Does Hypernomicon have some similar feature? If not, I'd happily suggest it!

Thanks to Jason Winning for all you do, it's truly a service to the profession.

[Jason Winning]

Hi Taylor, Thanks for your message. I'm glad you are finding Hypernomicon useful! The ability to export to BibTex (and if I were going to implement that, I would probably go ahead and do RIS as well) sounds like a good idea. However, I wonder if it would still be more useful for you to use Zotero with Hypernomicon, even if the only thing you use it for is as a repository of information behind the scenes; it can keep track of more information than Hypernomicon does by itself, and if you aren't interested in using the Zotero desktop or web apps, you can mostly just manage the Zotero entries from Hypernomicon.

In fact, that's pretty much what I do (there are only a few non-routine tasks I have to go to the Zotero web app to do, like deleting entries). Some advantages to this approach:

• Hypernomicon can try to fill in missing information from the internet for a given entry; just takes clicking a button
• Information can easily be synched between Hypernomicon and Zotero (here you just click one button to sync all the entries)
• If you make changes, e.g., to an author's name in Hypernomicon, you won't have to manually edit your BibTex entry; just sync to Zotero and export the entry from Zotero again
• You can export lots of entries to BibTex at once from Zotero

See the Integrating Hypernomicon with Zotero and Mendeley tutorial video for more information.

So I think that even if you are only want to use Zotero in a very minimal way, this workflow could still be better for you. But if this is still not appealing to you, I can go ahead and add the export function. In that case, would you mind adding a new ticket under "Report Bugs or Request Features" here in Sourceforge (and add any other details that might be useful, like where you think the export command should be in the user interface, how it should work, etc.)? Then it is easier to keep track of your request and prevent it from getting lost.

Jason

[Taylor Koles]

Thanks Jason, I appreciate your recommendation! I'll give it a try before I request a feature. Perhaps I have just been too pig-headed about Zotero to appreciate the attractions of the workflow you describe.