Re: wip-cite status question and feedback

[Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr>]

Hello,

denis.maier.lists@mailbox.org writes:

> Just one question concerning typed citations. citeX is good and
> concise, but why limit this to only one character?

Because… it is good and concise? ;)

> What about allowing something more verbose? Perhaps
> "cite-intext:" or "cite:intext:"?

Note the latter introduces an ambiguity: [cite:see: @doe was right!].
Fixing it requires two colons in default cite prefix: [cite::@doe].
I don't think we want this.

The former doesn't have this bias.

> The simple syntax is great for most cases, but if you want to support
> some of those not so common biblatex commands, this might be better.

Alphanumeric suffix provides 62 combinations, which should hopefully be
enough for any citation back-end out there (I'm looking at you
biblatex). It's not terribly readable, tho, as you point out.

> What do you think?

This is a conciseness versus readability problem, not a technical one,
as long as we do not allow too much, from a parser point of view.

I have no strong opinion on the topic. It would be more valuable to hear
from actual citations users. What would they prefer?

> Concerning some other open questions, I suggest sticking to what
> citeproc-org uses:
>
> 1. For the bibliography:
>
> #+bibliography: something.bib
> (Could this be a list containing multiple files?)

Multiple keywords may be more appropriate, particularly if you need to
spell out absolute file names.

Org can provide a function listing all of them anyway.

> 2. Placing the bibliography with:
>
> #+bibliography: here
> (Ideally, it would be possible to have this multiple times, perhaps
> with some filters, like printing only the works of a certain author,
> or with certain keywords, or so. But that's, of course something for
> later...)

It is smart, but I'm not sure I like using the same keyword for two
different things. OTOH, I don't have a better idea.

> 3. Setting the style:
> #+CSL_STYLE: "some-style.csl"
>
> Of course, if you're using biblatex or natbib you'll need another
> option for that.

I think this part is out of Org's scope. Since values between various
citation back-ends are probably not compatible, e.g., some may require
a file, others a style name, normalization is not useful here. They can
use whatever keyword they fancy.

Regards,

-- 
Nicolas Goaziou