Re: Citation syntax: a revised proposal

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

Eric S Fraga writes:

> On Saturday, 14 Feb 2015 at 18:29, Richard Lawrence wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Since discussion seems to have petered out on the previous thread (see:
>> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/94524), I took some time to
>> go back over the discussion and write up a concrete proposal for
>> citation syntax.
>
> +1 emphatically.

I still remain somewhat on the positive side of 0. While the focus of
these conversations has been on syntax (a necessary step to move
forward), there has been little focus on function. Citations in org are
/far/ more than just references in the text for me. They are functional
links, gateways to a lot of information connected to the citation. My
org-files are much more useful than the PDF manuscripts that get
exported. It is hard to explain what that means exactly, so if you have
the time check these videos out. The last one shows the most integrated
capabilities we use.

org-ref show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvpSVl4_dg
org-ref in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zya8SfmCtFA
org-ref + helm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cEb6F9AEu0

These features beat the pants off every citation manager software I have
ever seen, and over the past decade I have tried a lot of them. There is
in my opinion no syntax worth giving this up for. I am only moderately
sure the proposed syntax can be used the way we use links. I am only
mildly concerned some things will be too difficult to do that are
currently possible, e.g. sorting a multcite, or rearranging them with
arrow keys. Who knows, some things might be simpler.

> I would like to see something along these lines implemented so we can
> "suck it and see"...

I also would like to see if it is workable. There is nothing to lose in
trying. org-ref will always be an alternative option, and if the new
syntax is extendable enough it might even replace the citation links.

> For my use case, you've covered everything and, as John Kitchin says,
> most cite insertions could be automated through appropriate code and key
> bindings but, very importantly, common uses are quite straightforward to
> type directly.
>
> With respect to the bibliography database, for completeness, I would
> like to see linking with org-bibtex data instead of bibtex etc.

I think we can come up with a reasonable, user-customizable api that
would support multiple data sources. A user would customize the click
and export function. There might even be simple out of the box default
functions for org-bibtex and bibtex, and zotero through zotxt. For the
first two, the click function could just open the entry in the
bibliography file.

>
> Thanks,
> eric

--
Professor John Kitchin
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@johnkitchin
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