Re: Citations, continued

[John Kitchin <jkitchin@andrew.cmu.edu>]

Thomas S. Dye writes:

> Aloha Richard,
>
> Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> writes:
>
>> My point is not that the link syntax *can't* do enough.  Rather, my
>> point is that citations are conceptually distinct from links, and if we
>> are going to adopt an official syntax for them, that syntax should
>> reflect this conceptual distinction.  This is better for document
>> authors, because it is less work for us.  It gives us the right tool for
>> this particular job, instead of re-purposing a tool that, despite its
>> power, is designed for a different job.  It is thus better for the Org
>> community as a whole.
>
> I agree that citations are conceptually distinct from links, but at the
> same time they share many features.  Both can refer to something outside
> the Org mode document.  Both can be replaced in the Org mode export with
> something from outside the Org mode document.  The fact that links can
> be made to handle most users' citation needs is practical proof that the
> similarities are more than superficial.
>
> Now, I agree with you that Org mode links are not ideal for citations.
> Parsing the description is humbug and error-prone, and the descriptions
> look ungainly in the Org mode document.  I never remember to click
> citation links in the "right" place!  There is much room for improvement
> here.

I am not sure how much better it could get. What did you have in mind? I
could imagine for a cite link with several citations the click action
could give you an ido-completing/helm selection buffer and you choose
what you want to do from there. In org-ref the click action is user
definable, so you can get what you want.

>
> You and others are advocating a separate syntax for links and citations,
> which might indeed be the way to go.  I can see it being much nicer than
> the current state of affairs with Org mode links.  The downside is that
> it will mean learning another set of rules, in addition to the existing
> rules for links.
>
> Several years ago, Samuel Wales suggested an extensible syntax example
> using link features
> (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2010-08/msg00404.html).
> At the time it seemed to me that this was a Lisp-y approach because it
> solved particular problems by generalizing or abstracting a language
> feature to include particulars that had previously fallen outside its
> ken.  I wanted something like this while I was working on implementing
> citation links for export to LaTeX.
>

I am totally for this idea! I have been pondering how to make a link
element with extra data in it for a while.


> Would it be feasible to generalize Org mode's link syntax, or make it
> extensible, so the overlap of link with citation is complete?
>
> All the best,
> Tom

--
Professor John Kitchin
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