refdb-users — List for RefDB users

[Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

Hi all,

after another 6 months of work, RefDB 0.9.8 has been released into the
wild today. Please grab your copy right here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/showfiles.php?group_id=26091

Please note that you should also upgrade your RefDB-perlclient package
to 1.15.

See the attached list for news and bugfixes. Please report any
problems to the list.

regards,
Markus

Bugfixes:

- queries for UR and L1-L4 fields now work again

- en2ris now properly imports the start and end page information from
  newer EndNote versions

- using multiple databases in LaTeX documents now works again properly

- bibtex output is now properly escaped

- getref now honours backslash-escaped apostrophes in query strings

- strings extending the length of limited size fields in t_refdb are
  now properly truncated during data import

- correctly rollback if adding RIS data fails

- exclusive queries (e.g. :UR:!~"http") now work as expected for links
  (UR, L1-L4, authors, and keywords

- refdbd now modifies citation keys containing the string "-ID" as
  this may cause problems when creating bibliographies. "-ID" will be
  replaced with "_ID" to avoid problems.

- if an iconv error occurs during data import, refdbd now returns a
  meaningful error message.

- in Pubmed XML data, <PersonalNameSubject> name parts no longer leak
  into the next author name


Improvements:

- the refdba:listuser command now checks for the required database
  argument

- improved manpage layout by using new DocBook stylesheet capabilities
  when available, and workarounds for older stylesheet versions

- configure now simplifies the task of building modularized RefDB
  packages. You can now build server, clients, and doc packages
  separately. Additionally, you can switch off building docs and
  manpages to build the RefDB binaries from the SVN sourceson systems
  without an XML/DocBook toolchaiin

- the code that generates citation keys from author names was improved
  by using iconv to transliterate foreign characters. 

- the default setup now uses UTF-8 as the default input, storage, and
  output encoding.

- the wrapper script bib2ris-utf8 was added to simplify postprocessing
  of the bib2ris output with the new refdb_latex2uft8txt script. The
  latter converts foreign characters to their UTF-8 equivalents and
  strips off other LaTeX commands.

- personal reference lists are now implemented on top of extended
  notes. This means in particular that each user can maintain an
  unlimited number of reference lists

- various fixes to the PHP web interface

- use an improved bibtex citation format (\cite{dbname:citekey})

- now supports citation key based citation formats in addition to
  author/year and numeric

- improved citation formats handle more reference types

- refdbd can now install and upgrade the main database without
  external tools. See the file UPGRADING and the refdbd man page for
  further information.

- for this to work, the main database dump files are now versioned

- refdb-init now uses these new refdbd capabilities to simplify the
  initial setup.

- refdbd can also be run to check the database connection and to
  retrieve the database version. This is mainly useful for
  package/ports builders.

- the help messages of the binaries now show the subversion revision
  they were built from. This makes it easier to track down bugs to
  specific builds.

- refdbd can now run from a single main+reference database to allow
  the installation on cheap web space with access to a single MySQL
  database.

- RefDB now provides frequency data for various statistical
  purposes. The get{au|ed|as|kw|jo|jf|j1|j2} commands allow to display
  the absolute number of references that use the particular item, or a
  relative number between 0 and 10

- The xhtml output of getref and checkref now contain frequency
  data. If you view the output with a new optional stylesheet, the
  authors, journal names, and keywords will be displayed according to
  their frequency in terms of font size and colour, similar to the tag
  clouds in services like del.icio.us.

- getref and get{au|ed|as|kw|jo|jf|j1|j2} now support a new option -N
  limit[:offset] to cut down on the number of returned datasets. This
  feature can be conveniently used to loop over the result set in
  e.g. increments of 5 or 10, a feature most useful for graphical
  frontends.

- the dump files of empty reference databases (these are required
  e.g. to set up RefDB using a single database) were updated and
  versioned.

- the name of the main database is now configurable through the
refdbdrc config file or by means of refdbd's -M command-line
option. This allows RefDB to run in situations where you cannot choose
the database name.
 
Backwards-incompatible changes:

- The -N option of the refdba:adduser command (which specifies the
  password of a new user) was renamed to -W. -N is now used by the
  clients to specify a number or a range of datasets.

- The addref and updateref commands now use -A to specify the
  input reference type instead of -r. This was necessary to stay
  consistent with the new checkref command which has to deal with both
  an input (-A) and an output (-r) format.

- To avoid confusion, these changes extend to the internal
  client/server protocol. Its version is now 5. As a result, old clients
  won't talk to the new server and vice versa.


-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

[Refdb-users] ANN: Debian svn repository updated to revision 253

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

The Debian svn repository has been updated to revision 253.

Regards,
David.

[Refdb-users] ANN: Debian pre-release repository upgraded to 0.9.8-pre9

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

The Debian pre-release repository has been upgraded to version 0.9.8-pre9.

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

David Nebauer <dav...@sw...> was heard to say:


> Oh dear, how foolish to tempt the gods with phrasing like that.
>
> I have encountered another build failure, this time building documentation:
>

Mea culpa. Looks like I forgot to add the file to the subversion repository. It
is included in the pre9 archive though, so this problem does not affect those
who want to test the prerelease from the tarball. I'll add this file tonight,
as I'm away from my development box right now.

Memo to self: thou shalt test a fresh svn checkout as well before releasing code
into the wild.

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

David Nebauer <dav...@sw...> was heard to say:

> A very simple reason, as it turns out.  During the package building
> process I was copying the build tree using a simple 'cp -r *' command
> which did not copy hidden directories, including the '.svn/'
> subdirectory.  So, the problem wasn't the svn command but that the svn
> subdirectory was entirely absent!  This only became a problem when you
> included in the build process an interrogation of the svn revision number.
>
> I've modified the copy command to include the '.svn/' subdirectory and
> all is now well.
>

You seem to have the obsession to pick the one bordercase that I didn't consider
 :-) Glad that it works now.

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

Hi Markus,
> I've modified the copy command to include the '.svn/' subdirectory and all is now well.


Oh dear, how foolish to tempt the gods with phrasing like that.

I have encountered another build failure, this time building documentation:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<snip/>
dtdformat --html citestylex.xml
Formatting HTML.
Using plain library.
Writing Elements...
Writing Entities...
Writing Notations...
Done.
../scripts/dtdparseweave citestylex
line 1 column 1 - Warning: missing <!DOCTYPE> declaration
line 6 column 1 - Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
line 27 column 1 - Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
line 74 column 1 - Warning: trimming empty <p>
<snip numerous warnings/>
line 1 column 1 - Warning: missing <!DOCTYPE> declaration
line 6 column 1 - Warning: <table> lacks "summary" attribute
line 62 column 1 - Warning: trimming empty <p>
/refdb-0.0-svn-20061201/doc
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `chapter-programming.xml', needed by 
`refdb-manual.pdf'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/refdb-0.0-svn-20061201/doc'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/refdb-0.0-svn-20061201'
make: *** [build-stamp] Error 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

Hi Markus,
> As you do have subversion installed *and* work in a svn working copy,
> $mysvnversion should be set to the svnversion command. In your case it is set
> to the cat command, for whatever reason.


A very simple reason, as it turns out.  During the package building 
process I was copying the build tree using a simple 'cp -r *' command 
which did not copy hidden directories, including the '.svn/' 
subdirectory.  So, the problem wasn't the svn command but that the svn 
subdirectory was entirely absent!  This only became a problem when you 
included in the build process an interrogation of the svn revision number.

I've modified the copy command to include the '.svn/' subdirectory and 
all is now well.

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

David Nebauer <dav...@sw...> was heard to say:

> Requested files have been sent off-list.
>

What does the following command return if you run it from the RefDB top-level
directory:

/usr/bin/svnversion -n '.'

The code that seems to work incorrectly on your system is the following chunk in
configure.in:

if test "X$svnversioncommand" = "X" || test `$svnversioncommand -n '.'` =
"exported"; then
mysvnversion="cat svn_dist_version"
else
mysvnversion="svnversion -n '.'"
fi

As you do have subversion installed *and* work in a svn working copy,
$mysvnversion should be set to the svnversion command. In your case it is set
to the cat command, for whatever reason.

regards,
Markus


-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

Hi Markus,
>> I haven't tried the pre-release yet.  It is svn that fails to build.
>
> Could you please send me your config.log and src/Makefile.am  

See attached.

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

Hi Markus,
>> I haven't tried the pre-release yet.  It is svn that fails to build.
>
> Could you please send me your config.log and src/Makefile.am?


Requested files have been sent off-list.

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

David Nebauer <dav...@sw...>:

> Hi Markus,
> >> The file 'svn_dist_version' does, indeed, appear to be missing.
> > $ tar -tzf incoming/refdb-0.9.8-pre9.tar.gz |grep version
> > refdb-0.9.8-pre9/src/svn_version.c
> > refdb-0.9.8-pre9/src/svn_dist_version
>
>
> I haven't tried the pre-release yet.  It is svn that fails to build.
>

Could you please send me your config.log and src/Makefile.am? If you build from
a svn working copy, svn_dist_version should be created, but not read from.

regards,
Markus



-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

Hi Markus,
>> The file 'svn_dist_version' does, indeed, appear to be missing.
> $ tar -tzf incoming/refdb-0.9.8-pre9.tar.gz |grep version
> refdb-0.9.8-pre9/src/svn_version.c
> refdb-0.9.8-pre9/src/svn_dist_version


I haven't tried the pre-release yet.  It is svn that fails to build.

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

David Nebauer <dav...@sw...> was heard to say:

>
> The file 'svn_dist_version' does, indeed, appear to be missing.
>

$ tar -tzf incoming/refdb-0.9.8-pre9.tar.gz |grep version
refdb-0.9.8-pre9/src/svn_version.c
refdb-0.9.8-pre9/src/svn_dist_version

I reckon there must be a simple way to remove the file after unpacking it. Did
you run make clean or make distclean by any chance? If that causes the problem,
I'd have to fiddle with the Makefile.am to avoid losing the file.

> Proud to be upholding the old customs :-) .
>

Sigh...

Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

Hi Markus,
> we're approaching the next release 0.9.8
> In order to avoid the
> (almost customary) build problems on platforms other than FreeBSD


Build failure on Debian/test:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
</snip>
sed 's%<risxversion>%1.1.0%g' < ../src/refdbd.h.in | \
        sed 's%<xnoteversion>%1.2%g' | \
        sed 's%<citestylexversion>%1.6%g' | \
        sed 's%<citationlistxversion>%1.0%g' | \
        sed 's%<db_dir>%/var/lib/refdb/db%' | \
        sed 's%<main_db>%refdb%' > refdbd.h
../scripts/statgen.pl c > refstat.h
echo -n 'const char* svn_version(void) { const char* SVN_Version = "' > 
svn_version.c
cat svn_dist_version                    >> svn_version.c
cat: svn_dist_version: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [svn_version.c] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `src'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The file 'svn_dist_version' does, indeed, appear to be missing.

Proud to be upholding the old customs :-) .

Regards,
David.

[Refdb-users] ANN: refdb-0.9.8-pre9 available

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

Hi all,

we're approaching the next release 0.9.8 which should provide a couple
of useful enhancements to the general public. I've uploaded a
prerelease which is supposed to be the last one before 0.9.8, unless
there are any problems with this prerelease. In order to avoid the
(almost customary) build problems on platforms other than FreeBSD,
I've set up a SuSE linux test box (SuSE because we already have very
active Debian and Mandriva users on board). I didn't run into any
problems on that system yet.

The prerelease was built from subversion revision 250 and is available
right here:

http://refdb.sourceforge.net/pre/refdb-latest.tar.gz

I've appended the improvements and fixed bugs since 0.9.7
below. Please report any problems to the list to make 0.9.8 a smooth
experience.

regards,
Markus


Bugfixes:

- queries for UR and L1-L4 fields now work again

- en2ris now properly imports the start and end page information from
  newer EndNote versions

- using multiple databases in LaTeX documents now works again properly

- bibtex output is now properly escaped

- getref now honours backslash-escaped apostrophes in query strings

- strings extending the length of limited size fields in t_refdb are
  now properly truncated during data import

- correctly rollback if adding RIS data fails

- exclusive queries (e.g. :UR:!~"http") now work as expected for links
  (UR, L1-L4, authors, and keywords

- refdbd now modifies citation keys containing the string "-ID" as
  this may cause problems when creating bibliographies. "-ID" will be
  replaced with "_ID" to avoid problems.

- if an iconv error occurs during data import, refdbd now returns a
  meaningful error message.


Improvements:

- the refdba:listuser command now checks for the required database
  argument

- improved manpage layout by using new DocBook stylesheet capabilities
  when available, and workarounds for older stylesheet versions

- configure now simplifies the task of building modularized RefDB
  packages. You can now build server, clients, and doc packages
  separately. Additionally, you can switch off building docs and
  manpages to build the RefDB binaries from the SVN sourceson systems
  without an XML/DocBook toolchaiin

- the code that generates citation keys from author names was improved
  by using iconv to transliterate foreign characters. 

- the default setup now uses UTF-8 as the default input, storage, and
  output encoding.

- the wrapper script bib2ris-utf8 was added to simplify postprocessing
  of the bib2ris output with the new refdb_latex2uft8txt script. The
  latter converts foreign characters to their UTF-8 equivalents and
  strips off other LaTeX commands.

- personal reference lists are now implemented on top of extended
  notes. This means in particular that each user can maintain an
  unlimited number of reference lists

- various fixes to the PHP web interface

- use an improved bibtex citation format (\cite{dbname:citekey})

- now supports citation key based citation formats in addition to
  author/year and numeric

- improved citation formats handle more reference types

- refdbd can now install and upgrade the main database without
  external tools. See the file UPGRADING and the refdbd man page for
  further information.

- refdb-init now uses these new refdbd capabilities to simplify the
  initial setup.

- refdbd can also be run to check the database connection and to
  retrieve the database version. This is mainly useful for
  package/ports builders.

- the help messages of the binaries now show the subversion revision
  they were built from. This makes it easier to track down bugs to
  specific builds.

- refdbd can now run from a single main+reference database to allow
  the installation on cheap web space with access to a single MySQL
  database.

- RefDB now provides frequency data for various statistical
  purposes. The get{au|ed|as|kw|jo|jf|j1|j2} commands allow to display
  the absolute number of references that use the particular item, or a
  relative number between 0 and 10

- The xhtml output of getref and checkref now contain frequency
  data. If you view the output with a new optional stylesheet, the
  authors, journal names, and keywords will be displayed according to
  their frequency in terms of font size and colour, similar to the tag
  clouds in services like del.icio.us.

- getref and get{au|ed|as|kw|jo|jf|j1|j2} now support a new option -N
  limit[:offset] to cut down on the number of returned datasets. This
  feature can be conveniently used to loop over the result set in
  e.g. increments of 5 or 10, a feature most useful for graphical
  frontends.


-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

[Refdb-users] ANN: Debian svn repository updated to revision 241

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

The Debian svn repository packages have been updated to revision 241.

Regards,
David.

[Refdb-users] ANN: Debian svn repository packages updated to revision 238

[David N. <dav...@sw...>]

The Debian svn repository packages have been updated to revision 238.

Regards,
David.

Re: [Refdb-users] How to use RefDB with a single database

[<ste...@jo...>]

Markus Hoenicka a =E9crit :
> Hi all,
>=20
> I've posted a short description how you can run RefDB with a single dat=
abase,
> e.g. if you want to use rented web space which often comes with a singl=
e MySQL
> database. See also bug report #1584375. The procedure described here re=
quires
> the latest svn version 235.
>=20
> http://www.mhoenicka.de/system-cgi/blog/index.php?itemid=3D974
>=20
> regards,
> Markus
>=20

I didn't add a new wish on the list since i thought it was not a=20
priority, but very nice to see the improvement ;-)

Cheers,

St=E9phane

--=20
St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a, PhD.                  http://www.steletch.org
Unit=E9 Math=E9matique Informatique et G=E9nome http://migale.jouy.inra.f=
r/mig
INRA, Domaine de Vilvert                  T=E9l : (33) 134 652 891
78352 Jouy-en-Josas cedex, France         Fax : (33) 134 652 901

[Refdb-users] How to use RefDB with a single database

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

Hi all,

I've posted a short description how you can run RefDB with a single database,
e.g. if you want to use rented web space which often comes with a single MySQL
database. See also bug report #1584375. The procedure described here requires
the latest svn version 235.

http://www.mhoenicka.de/system-cgi/blog/index.php?itemid=974

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

[Refdb-users] Fwd: Not reinventing the wheel ...

[Bruce D'A. <bda...@gm...>]

oops ...

On 11/14/06, Markus Hoenicka <mar...@mh...> wrote:

> I'm currently revisiting an old project that would allow me to enter these
> 30-something elements using a Wiki-style short syntax. There is a paper on the
> web that describes how to transform Wiki to XML using Openjade.

 I never got that far with it, but adding a simple extension to a wiki
markup language like Textile is really easy, as is extending the
Python and Ruby implementations to interpret it. Might be worth
exploring too?

Bruce

[Refdb-users] Fwd: Re: Not reinventing the wheel ...

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

[forgot to include the list...]

----- Weitergeleitete Nachricht von Markus Hoenicka
<mar...@mh...> -----
    Datum: Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:43:55 +0100
    Von: Markus Hoenicka <mar...@mh...>
Antwort an: Markus Hoenicka <mar...@mh...>
 Betreff: Re: [Refdb-users] Not reinventing the wheel ...
      An: St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a <ste...@jo...>

St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a <ste...@jo...> was heard to say:


> Ok, i think there's not much to say on this thread, i totally get your
> points, but emacs when you need to work with non emacs-people ...
>

No, you don't need Emacs for this, although it admittedly adds an enormou=
s
amount of convenience. Any XML editor will do, and there are some on the =
market
that more or less entirely hide the tags while you write. And that's why =
I also
pointed out the Wiki way of writing. You can do this in as humble an edit=
or as
Notepad.

> Unfortunately, that's the fate of Windows/Word users, mostly biologists=
 ...
>

I am a biologist.

regards,
Markus

--=20
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

----- Ende der weitergeleiteten Nachricht -----


--=20
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] Not reinventing the wheel ...

[Markus H. <mar...@mh...>]

St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a <ste...@jo...> was heard to say:

> Nice to hear that, but infortunately, that'll probably not help me a lo=
t
> when i'll be to wirte my publication with coworkers using either
> Openoffice.org 1.x series and Word 2003 (if not before). I'm talking
> about practical situations, within something like 6 months.
>

FWIW my short-term solution for this problem is to use Emacs+DocBook+RefD=
B in
the writing phase. Only once the contents are done, and only if the outpu=
t
format must be a word processor format, I transform to RTF using Openjade=
 and
add the final touches in OO. If anyone claims that DocBook is too hard to=
 teach
to the average mouse pusher addicted to Word, I always like to point out =
that an
average paper or grant proposal can be written using less than 40 element=
s (out
of >300).

I'm currently revisiting an old project that would allow me to enter thes=
e
30-something elements using a Wiki-style short syntax. There is a paper o=
n the
web that describes how to transform Wiki to XML using Openjade.

regards
Markus

--=20
Markus Hoenicka
mar...@ca...
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de

Re: [Refdb-users] Not reinventing the wheel ...

[<ste...@jo...>]

Bruce D'Arcus a =E9crit :
> On 11/14/06, St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a <ste...@jo...> wrote:
>=20
>> Sorry to not follow you argument but i've been on their mailing list
>> long time ago (around 2002 IIRC) and this feature is *far* from being
>> the priority. We're now close to 2007 and this is still a work in
>> progress. What we need is somthing working for the moment, and may be
>> another implementation later if they provide a better way.
>=20
> The question is, is it really worth Markus' effort to do this in the sh=
ort-run?

In the short run, certainly not :-)
Furthermore, i'm not able to help him coding him (otherwise i would have=20
proposed myself for it).
In the long term though, the question is : do refdb need an extension to=20
word processors (Writer and Word being jusst two examples, there's also=20
abiword, kword, siag, ...) ?

Roughly, i think yes, in the same way it already outputs text, html,=20
xml, bibtex, ... The question lies in where does it stops:
- just exporting into a common format and another software is used to=20
insert into wordprocessors (at least this is already the case for=20
bibtex, why not for wordprocessors), that's why i've cited bibus
- doing all the stuff (insert the citation directly into the=20
wordprocessor), and in that case, refdb may benefit from others work=20
(thus not reinventing the wheel).

> As for the state of OOoBib, it has indeed been slow coming. The truth
> is we need file format-level changes and then for some changes to be
> supported in Writer. Because this work requires extensive knowledge of
> both C++ and the Writer code, it can only really be done by Sun
> developers.
>=20
> For the longest time, Sun didn't really care about our project.
> However, things have changed recently. For one thing, I'm working with
> the ODF TC on a new metadata system for the file format. This is sort
> of similar to Microsoft's Custom Schema support (which they are using
> to implement the new citation support in Word 2007/Open XML). For this
> reason, Sun sees it as a mechanism to add richer custom solution
> support, and so citations are for them a perfect use case to build
> around.

Nice to hear that, but infortunately, that'll probably not help me a lot=20
when i'll be to wirte my publication with coworkers using either=20
Openoffice.org 1.x series and Word 2003 (if not before). I'm talking=20
about practical situations, within something like 6 months.

Of course, we'll find a way, but i'm trying to get a working solution in=20
a not too far and unpredictable) future.

>> Second that does not solve the Word problem, bibus does.
>=20
> Does Bibus support the new citation stuff in Word 2007?

Don't know yet, but the implementation *may* work as is. I know P.=20
Martineau, and i think if there's a need, he'll probably release a new=20
working template.

> I'd say if Markus wants to experiment with the Bibus interfaces, he
> should do it. But it sounds like he has the same opinion that the
> KWord lead I talked to recently has: better to think of a more generic
> solution.

I'll ever agree with this, but this 'thinking' process just lies in the=20
middle of the problem: actually, we don't have *any* integrated solution.
Remember the whole GPL driving force : release soon, release often ...


> My suggestion would be to see if we can engage a larger discussion
> that includes the Zotero developers about how best to move forward on
> this. They are explicitly targeting Word 2007.
>=20
> Bruce

Ok for this, but only if there is an agreement on common features and a=20
designated leader. But that'll remember me the 2002 discussions on the=20
OpenOffice.org ML that led to the current situation :-(

I totally agree on your long-term objectives, but that would=20
definitively not prevent getting a first smaller implementation (after=20
all, the ODT format has taken some time to grow, i presume the bib=20
extensions would need some maturation within versions also).

Cheers,

St=E9phane

--=20
St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a, PhD.                  http://www.steletch.org
Unit=E9 Math=E9matique Informatique et G=E9nome http://migale.jouy.inra.f=
r/mig
INRA, Domaine de Vilvert                  T=E9l : (33) 134 652 891
78352 Jouy-en-Josas cedex, France         Fax : (33) 134 652 901

Re: [Refdb-users] Not reinventing the wheel ...

[Bruce D'A. <bda...@gm...>]

On 11/14/06, Bruce D'Arcus <bda...@gm...> wrote:

> I'd say if Markus wants to experiment with the Bibus interfaces, he
> should do it. But it sounds like he has the same opinion that the
> KWord lead I talked to recently has: better to think of a more generic
> solution.

On this, BTW, he was wondering if D-Bus might help. Am not really sure.

Bruce

Re: [Refdb-users] Not reinventing the wheel ...

[Bruce D'A. <bda...@gm...>]

On 11/14/06, St=E9phane T=E9letch=E9a <ste...@jo...> wrote:

> Sorry to not follow you argument but i've been on their mailing list
> long time ago (around 2002 IIRC) and this feature is *far* from being
> the priority. We're now close to 2007 and this is still a work in
> progress. What we need is somthing working for the moment, and may be
> another implementation later if they provide a better way.

The question is, is it really worth Markus' effort to do this in the short-=
run?

As for the state of OOoBib, it has indeed been slow coming. The truth
is we need file format-level changes and then for some changes to be
supported in Writer. Because this work requires extensive knowledge of
both C++ and the Writer code, it can only really be done by Sun
developers.

For the longest time, Sun didn't really care about our project.
However, things have changed recently. For one thing, I'm working with
the ODF TC on a new metadata system for the file format. This is sort
of similar to Microsoft's Custom Schema support (which they are using
to implement the new citation support in Word 2007/Open XML). For this
reason, Sun sees it as a mechanism to add richer custom solution
support, and so citations are for them a perfect use case to build
around.

> Second that does not solve the Word problem, bibus does.

Does Bibus support the new citation stuff in Word 2007?

I'd say if Markus wants to experiment with the Bibus interfaces, he
should do it. But it sounds like he has the same opinion that the
KWord lead I talked to recently has: better to think of a more generic
solution.

My suggestion would be to see if we can engage a larger discussion
that includes the Zotero developers about how best to move forward on
this. They are explicitly targeting Word 2007.

Bruce