Re: [emacs-humanities] How do you use Ebib?

[Joost Kremers]

On Sun, Feb 28 2021, Göktuğ Kayaalp wrote:
>> I thought I had added a command for it, but I just went back to check and I
>> couldn't find anything either... It's easy to do, however, by editing the 
>> .bib
>> file directly. There's an @Comment in there somewhere near the top that says
>> "ebib-main-file: " followed by the main file's file path. Remove that comment
>> and (re)load the .bib file.
>
> I suppose that would work for converting existing bib files that are
> strict subsets of some other bib file to a dependent one?
>
> If I ever end up writing a command for it I’ll send a PR.

One thing I meant to add here: The easiest way to convert a database from a
dependent to a normal one is by going through the .bib file. Once a dependent
database is loaded into Ebib, its basically just a list of keys. In order to
turn it into a normal database, you'd have to copy over all the data from the
main database. That's not very difficult, but the code would have to be written.

A simpler solution would be to add an argument to
`ebib--format-database-as-bibtex` that would cause it to forego writing the
"main database" comment. Or save the database and then reload it, ignoring the
"main database" comment. (`ebib–bib-read-entries` already has an argument
`not-as-dependent`, a function similar to `ebib-reload-current-database` could
make use of it.)

OTOH from a UI perspective it might not be the prettiest solution...

-- 
Joost Kremers
Life has its moments