Re: Citation processing via Zotero + zotxt

[Matt Price <moptop99@gmail.com>]

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On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 9:36 AM, Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us> wrote:

> Hi Richard,
>
> First, thank you for looking into this.  I learned something new from this
>
> > Pretty much all the other options we have talked about seem like they
> > will require multi-step, non-trivial installation procedures ("First
> > install {Node.js/Haskell/JVM ...}, then install
> > {citeproc-node/pandoc-citeproc/citeproc-java...}, then install our
> > wrapper script...").  Updating could require other manual operations of
> > similar complexity.  Avoiding that kind of procedure will make citations
> > a lot more usable from Org for everyone.
>
> I think this is *very* important.
>
I totally agree.



> > 2) It is quite complete.
> >
> > Previously, I thought that it would be a similar amount of work to
> > communicate with Zotero from Emacs as any of the other CSL
> > implementations out there.  However, after looking at zotxt a bit more
> > closely, I discovered that it has an (undocumented) API endpoint [3]
>
> This sounds amazing, but also dangerous.  Do you know whether stabilizing
> the API has been discussed upstream?
>

I think the API Richard is referring to is *zotxt's* API, not Zotero's. So
"upstream" is a very short distance to an underground spring under our
house (Erik Hetzner).
The somewhat more widely-used Better Bibtex plugin also has provides an API
to the Zotero database (https://zotplus.github.io/better-bibtex/cayw.html).
In either case, it probably would be relatively easy to provide patches to
the maintainer if we run into trouble.


>
> > that pretty much does exactly what we need: it accepts a list of
> > citation objects, and returns a list of formatted citations and a
> > formatted bibliography, which can be inserted into the exported
> > document.
>
> Could you give an example of the sort of input you give?  I.e. is it based
> on keys?  From my bibtex-centric world view I imagine something like:
>
>    I send key or pointer @K to a DB entry as well as a CSL-file pointer C,
>    and maybe a desired output format F.  I get a string back that is the
>    formatting of the data behind @K formatted according to the rules in C,
>    adapted to F.
>
> Is that correct?  If so, does it support html, text and odt?
>
> Right now, IIUC, zotxt accepts only a *style name*, not a CSL file -- it
will locate the CSL file in the Zotero style list.  It supports html and
text output formats, as well as the QuickKey syntax used by the ODF-scan
zotero plugin (https://github.com/Zotero-ODF-Scan/zotero-odf-scan). My
understanding is that providing fully-formed odt syntax is difficult,
because  of the structure of the odt file, which I guess wants a bunch of
metadata that isn't trivial to provide.  The recommended path right now is
to run ODF-scan on the odt from libreoffice -- it's an annoying extra step
that I was hoping to be able to avoid, but am not competent to program:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/29308/7/rtfodf-scan-for-zotero/#Comment_226799

> This endpoint still needs a little bit of work, to generalize it and
> > make it easier to get the data in the format we need.  (That is probably
> > why it is undocumented in the README.) But it requires much less work
> > than I thought it would, and much less work than it would be to get a
> > full-featured setup with something like citeproc-node.
>
> This is a very strong argument.
>
> At some point Matt talked about adding support for org citation syntax in
> citeproc-js.  Would this be advantageous if going this route?  I guess not.
>

Depends on whether you want to be able to request org-mode syntax from
zotero. Zotero uses citation-js internally; changes we make to citation-js
will eventually percolate up to zotero, and it's not impossible to replace
zotero's citeproc with one's own copy (even I can do it).

>
> >
>


> IMO we can leverage zotero as a tool, but we cannot enforce it as a
> bibliography manager.
>

yes

>
> > I still think Zotero + zotxt is the best option for non-LaTeX
> > citation processing, even for these folks.  The ease of installation
> > (and removal) of the required programs alone makes it worth it, even if
> > you never actually populate a Zotero database.  So given what I know at
> > the moment, I think our efforts would best be directed at making the
> > in-progress org-cite library communicate with Zotero via zotxt.  What do
> > you think?
>
> +1, though re zotxt we should make sure Erik would want to move it to
> GELPA.
>

Basically I'm enthusiastic and glad you are taking up the challenge, since
matt's programming:snail's pace :: snail's pace:leopard run

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