Re: oc-biblatex and biblatex substyles

[Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us>]

Ah, now I sent two emails. I thought the first one got lost.
Sorry for the noise.
Rasmus

Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:

> Hi there,
>
> Sorry for the slow reply.
>
> Nicolas Goaziou <mail@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> writes:
>>
>>> I wonder if oc-biblatex should support loading biblatex-derived libraries,
>>> e.g. biblatex-chicago?
>>>
>>> There’s a quite a few of these libraries:
>>>
>>>    $ tlmgr search --global "biblatex-" | wc -l
>>>      66
>>>
>>> (This is somewhat overestimating the true number of “biblatex-*”
>>> packages).
>>>
>>> These libraries are typically nie because they are (i) easier to configure
>>> than biblatex for a specific style and (ii) actually support some
>>> \usepackage keywords that can’t be used by biblatex (e.g. ibidtracker for
>>> biblatex-chicago).
>>>
>>> Thus, it might be able to at least support
>>>
>>>     #+cite_export: biblatex-$SUBSTYLE
>>>
>>> E.g. #+cite_export: biblatex-chicago.  But oc-biblatex would likely also
>>> have to be able to pickup biblatex-* packages in
>>> org-latex-(default-)packages-alist...
>>>
>>> So maybe it’s a can of worms?
>>
>> I don't know enough about BibLaTeX to answer that question. What does it
>> entail to "support loading biblatex-derived libraries" in practical
>> terms? I assume \usepackage{biblatex-chicago} instead of
>> \usepackage{biblatex}, with a different set of options and commands,
>> too.
>
> For the most part it should be drop in replacements.  I don’t think any
> user commands are *removed* from a derived style. But options to the
> package could be added an user commands could be added.
>
>> It may be possible to define a new variable, e.g.,
>> ‘org-cite-biblatex-package‘, defaulting to ("bilatex" . nil). It would
>> contain entries like (SUBSTYLE . OPTIONS) and would be used to build the
>> proper \usepackage invocation.
>
> Maybe that is the best way to go about.  Then at least we could support
> the main styles out there.  I guess Chicago covers most of the social
> sciences?  I guess the humanities use APA?  I don’t know how different
> biblatex-apa is though.
>
> There are also obscure styles.  E.g. a student once used biblatex-aer
> which is a derived style of biblatex-chicago that makes it look like a
> famous journal.
>
>
>> I also plan to allow custom commands in "oc-biblatex.el", so it could
>> also handle commands introduced by the substyles.
>>
>> How we would select substyle from the document is not clear, tho.
>
> If we want to support arbitrary styles somewhat I guess something like
> #+cite_export: biblatex-$SUBSTYLE would be ok.  But it would not
> necessarily be full support.
>
>> Another possibility it to write, e.g., "oc-biblatex-chicago.el" and
>> define a new ‘biblatex-chicago’ export processor, re-using most
>> functions from "oc-biblatex.el". It would probably only be necessary to
>> re-define ‘org-cite-biblatex-export-citation’ and
>> ‘org-cite-biblatex-prepare-preamble’.
>
> I guess you (and Tom) is right that it would be better to make a derived style.
>
> Tom, did you already make a derived style?  From the later emails it
> sounded like it, but I don’t see oc-biblatex-chicago.el in the main repo.
>
> Otherwise, I can have try to have a go at it over the coming weeks.
>
> Kind regards and terribly sorry again for missing the follow ups earlier,
> Rasmus

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