Re: [O] Citations, continued

[Rasmus]

Richard Lawrence <address@hidden> writes:

> Nicolas Goaziou <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Richard Lawrence <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> ...so the first step for introducing citation syntax to Org should be
>>> compiling a list of all the things such a syntax should represent.
>>
>> See also 
>>
>>   <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/72446>
>
> Within a citation, each reference to an individual work needs to be
> capable of containing:
>   1) a database key that references the cited work
>   2) prefix / pre-text
>   3) suffix / post-text
>   4) references to page/chapter/section/whatever numbers and ranges.
>      This is likely part of the prefix or suffix, but might be worth
>      parsing separately for localization or link-following behavior.
>   5) a way of indicating backend-agnostic formatting properties.
>      Examples of some properties users might want to specify are:

>      - displaying only some fields (or suppressing some fields) from a
>        reference record (e.g., journal, date, author)

Would this not be properties of the bibliography and not the citation?


> Citations as a whole also need:
>   6) address@hidden a way of indicating formatting properties for specific 
> export
>      backends.

I think the idea would be /not/ to have to consider specific backends.  If
you want special properties (say bold) for HTML could it not be solved by
a macro or a filter?  Probably I'm misunderstanding.

>      ...
>      - CSS or other styling class (HTML and derived backends; also
>        ODT?)

The user solves this by writing CSS.  Of course citations would be wrapped
in a span or whatever.

>      - properties describing how to treat emphasis and other
>        formatting that cannot appear in plain text (ASCII and other
>        plain text backends)

IMO this is solved by ox-ascii.el already.

> In addition to the syntax of citations themselves, the Org document
> would also need to represent the following metadata to support
> citations:
>   7) address@hidden a pointer to one or more backend reference databases,
>      including in-document databases in org-bibtex format

This would be a huge win.

>   8) a reference to a citation style or style file

How does this work outside of LaTeX?

>   9) a reference to a locale file

There's already a #+BIBLIOGRAPHY or #+REFERENCES in ox-bibtex.el.  But
it's quite limited.

>   10) an indication of where the bibliography should be found in the
>       exported document (equivalent to \printbibliography, etc. in
>       LaTeX)


> I would like to know if others can think of anything else that should go
> on this list.  I am particularly interested in hearing from people who
> use (or want to use) citations with non-LaTeX export backends, since I
> am least familiar with how citations work in those types of documents.

I would use citations in html and even odt.  Put it's a hard problem
'cause there's nothing quite like bib(la)tex (to the best of my
knowledge).

> I have also been working on a proposal for citation syntax that I think
> will meet these requirements, which I will post separately.

Cool!  Let me know if I can help.  

I have mainly worked on regexps for the syntax I proposed in another email.

—Rasmus

-- 
The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club