Alternative to Mendeley

Alternative to Mendeley

[Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto]

Hi.  I use Emacs and Auctex.  For my academic research, so far I have made
notes in several files - one for each paper.  Several people have recommended
Mendeley to me.  Mendeley is proprietary (even though it is gratis) and I
prefer open source.  I only tolerate proprietary software if it is much better
than the open alternative.  Can you recommend a good alternative to Mendeley?
Integration with Emacs is a plus but not mandatory.  But it must be something
I can learn (the basics) in an afternoon.

Regards

--
The sooner we fight global heating the lesser the cost.

Re: Alternative to Mendeley

[Richard Fieldsend]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 31/08/13 22:35, Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto wrote:
> Hi.  I use Emacs and Auctex.  For my academic research, so far I
> have made notes in several files - one for each paper.  Several
> people have recommended Mendeley to me.  Mendeley is proprietary
> (even though it is gratis) and I prefer open source.  I only
> tolerate proprietary software if it is much better than the open
> alternative.  Can you recommend a good alternative to Mendeley? 
> Integration with Emacs is a plus but not mandatory.  But it must be
> something I can learn (the basics) in an afternoon.
> 
> Regards
> 
> -- The sooner we fight global heating the lesser the cost.
> 

The obvious answer as you are using Emacs and AucTeX is to use the
built in tool. BibTeX is part of LaTeX, and AucTeX includes 'RefTeX'
which allows you to look up citations and add them into your paper.

Some of the features will be less than you will find in Mendeley, but
you can add notes for each BibTeX record (notes field).

RefTeX also allows you to internally reference the documents, so you
can link within the document on the basis of the page numbers, section
etc, so it has lots of extra functionality.

Hope that helps.

Richard
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSInppAAoJEPgCcgEJvnesjA4H/2H/ZFcXVyaacYA8IyNiSXY+
+9+d+HrCUzYklHikBpkwGiuRrwY8trP3RXlKPOORbTC5g4ozGWG2lr3X1pqjWPdY
BpTu0hgHRkMDsJkpxthabSxsRqNMkCZhKjuXsbMVFOaGUxb3ViXOLJfL1lz2L4Xg
tTr1gYqFtabNUQI/Zg4/Z8rfcO/gFcFxH7F/pYUi2SvkrUHu71W0NR4YRgNq8onm
HRBY5qV5hY8djb8J83M2hZCj9ZSmys7QReSksF7hbFxwSYrTiq6gaoCYrRVY82qO
IqtDXWImirM3gUPryDY9b7RsGIrtslVjmapoNw8gwlAkmN2cKIywbLW9yHigoig=
=busa
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Alternative to Mendeley

[Jambunathan K]

Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto <jorgepeixotomorais@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi.  I use Emacs and Auctex.  For my academic research, so far I have made
> notes in several files - one for each paper.  Several people have recommended
> Mendeley to me.  Mendeley is proprietary (even though it is gratis) and I
> prefer open source.  I only tolerate proprietary software if it is much better
> than the open alternative.  Can you recommend a good alternative to Mendeley?
> Integration with Emacs is a plus but not mandatory.  But it must be something
> I can learn (the basics) in an afternoon.

Zotero. Search for bibliography in orgmode.org or Org-mode mailing
lists.

>
> Regards
>
> --
> The sooner we fight global heating the lesser the cost.

Re: Alternative to Mendeley

[Jambunathan K]

Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto <jorgepeixotomorais@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi.  I use Emacs and Auctex.  For my academic research, so far I have made
> notes in several files - one for each paper.  Several people have recommended
> Mendeley to me.  Mendeley is proprietary (even though it is gratis) and I
> prefer open source.  I only tolerate proprietary software if it is much better
> than the open alternative.  Can you recommend a good alternative to Mendeley?
> Integration with Emacs is a plus but not mandatory.  But it must be something
> I can learn (the basics) in an afternoon.

There is also an org-bibtex.el or something like that.

> Regards
>
> --
> The sooner we fight global heating the lesser the cost.

Re: Alternative to Mendeley

[Joost Kremers]

Jorge Peixoto de Morais Neto wrote:
> Hi.  I use Emacs and Auctex.  For my academic research, so far I have made
> notes in several files - one for each paper.  Several people have recommended
> Mendeley to me.  Mendeley is proprietary (even though it is gratis) and I
> prefer open source.  I only tolerate proprietary software if it is much better
> than the open alternative.  Can you recommend a good alternative to Mendeley?
> Integration with Emacs is a plus but not mandatory.  But it must be something
> I can learn (the basics) in an afternoon.

I guess it depends on what you're looking for exactly. If you just want
a program to manage your .bib-files without having to edit them by hand,
you could take a look at an Emacs package I maintain, Ebib[1]. It allows
you to add notes to your entries, which are stored in the .bib file, but
also filenames, urls and DOIs, which can be opened in an appropriate
viewer or your browser.

However, if you're looking for something that integrates with the web
and/or social networks, then Zotero is probably the best choice, since
it's open source and well-known. I don't know how well it integrates
with LaTeX (which I assume is what you're using), but there is an Emacs
package called Zotelo[2] that seems to make that easier.

HTH

Joost



[1] Installable via MELPA or <http://ebib.sf.net>.
[2] <https://github.com/vitoshka/zotelo>


-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)