Re: [refbase-talk] amazing refbase

[Matthias S. <re...@ex...>]

Horst,

thanks for your feedback! I highly appreciate it.


On 10-Jun-2003 at 10:53 +0200 Horst K Hahn wrote:

>I have seen the sources and also the implementation at
> http://polaris.ipoe.uni-kiel.de/refs/
>and am amazed by what refbase already does.

Thanks for your kind words!
We need that more than anything else! :)

>At our institute, we use RefMan for organizing our references
>which of course is (similar to EndNote) a commercial package. We
>still have some annoying work to do in order to offer a quality
>web browser for our database - things that refbase has solved
>already.

It was the main idea of refbase to offer a centralized solution that
is accessible from everywhere, so that researchers located at varied
places could easily work together on the *same* pool of literature.
(additionally, everyone should benefit from a centralized database
since chances are high that the reference you're going to cite has
been already entered by one of your colleagues...)

>The main reason why we use RefMan are the export and plug-in
>features for an easy integration/use in Microsoft Word and LaTeX.
>Do you have such plans for refbase?

By its design, refbase is a web database application. This means
refbase is platform independent - you can access the data pool no
matter what platform or application you're using. On the other hand,
this makes it more difficult to offer tight integration with
particular production environments like Microsoft Word or LaTeX. We
had thought about developing plugins that would provide the level of
integration you're referring to. But frankly, at the moment we don't
have the resources (time and knowledge) that would allows us to make
any steps in that direction.

While not being as convenient as a customized plugin, refbase does
offer some sort of "cite while you write" integration (see below).
To further ease things, we were thinking of adding at least some
copy to clipboard functionality. By that, you could:

1. Export your references as "Text Citation", which will generate an
   output suitable for citing within the body text of your manuscript.
   The output will include the record's database IDs, e.g.:

	 Claridge et al. 1995 {14229}
	 Jackson & Seppelt 1995 {14440}
	 Jones 1995 {14456}

   (this functionality is already implemented)

2. Use the "copy to clipboard" button (which doesn't exist yet ;-)
   to easily extract your text citations.

3. Paste the data into your preferred application. Then after you've
   finished writing your manuscript:

4. Build your reference list by use of the "extract literature" form:
   (e.g.:  http://polaris.ipoe.uni-kiel.de/refs/extract.php )
   Simply paste your complete manuscript text into the form, choose
   the appropriate output style and press the "Export" button.

>are you aware of other open-source projects that do offer similar
>functionality?

I know of several open source projects that attempt to offer a
similar web based management of scientific literature (e.g., search
for "literature" or "citation" at http://sourceforge.net/ ). But I
don't know if any of these packages offer tight integration with
Microsoft Word or LaTeX...

With greetings from Kiel ;-), Matthias

______________________________________________
Matthias Steffens   ----   re...@ex...

refbase --- a web-based, platform-independent,
multi-user application for managing scientific
     literature, references and citations     

            http://www.refbase.net