Re: m-bib, xml, etc.

["Bruce D'Arcus" <darcusb@muohio.edu>]

Sounds great!  I can't comment on any technical issues because I don't 
know much about xml.  I do, however, know what I need in a bib system, 
and so will be happy to give input going forward.  It sounds like I 
ought to wait a bit before moving my fairly complex bib database off of 
Endnote though, and go with xml rather than bibtex.  

Any sense of timeframe here Taco?

Also, has anyone taken a look at refDB?  

see http://refdb.sourceforge.net

It's a bib system built on MySQL that processes both Docbook and LaTeX 
documents.

Bruce

Taco Hoekwater wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>See the questions by Bruce included below. Before I get to actually
>doing something with it, I think it is best to outline my plans with
>the bibliography module.
>
>1. I intend to switch to using XML as input format, using the 
>bibteXML DTD (loose format) as definition file. 
>
>See http://bibtexml.sourceforge.net for details of this project. 
>
>A big advantage of using this is that we can run piggyback on
>their bibtex/marc conversion tool :)
>
>I'm not sure whether to keep the current syntax. Advantage:
>easy backward compatibily. Downside: more complex code and
>possible confusion. Personally, I prefer to drop the support 
>for the old syntax altogether (perhaps providing a conversion
>script?)
>
>2. Add support for citations with tagged data as requested
>by Bruce (and previously by other people). 
>
>3. At the same time, drop support for latex \cite syntax.
>(At that time it is no longer needed), and go for a more
>standard context syntax using 
>	
>	\cite[<id>][<type> or <option=value>]
>
>4. create a bibl-XXX definition wizard (same functionality
>   as makebst)
>
>
>On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 22:56:12 -0400 (EDT), Bruce wrote:
>
>> 
>> Hi Taco,
>> 
>> I've been searching for information about m-bib as I'm trying to get 
it 
>> working, and came across this very interesting post of yours regarding 
>> your plans to replace bibtex with an xml-based system.  First, though, 
>> two simple questions:
>> 
>> 1) Is it now possible to have a citation in the form (see Smith, 1990, 
>> page 34)?
>> 2) I was led to believe I can use any bst I would use with LaTeX with 
>> ConTeXt.  But reading the m-bib doc suggests this isn't the case. Can 
>> you please explain?  One of the nice things of the BibTeX world is 
>> makebst, and I'd like to be able to use bsts generated with it.
>> 
>> Now to the bigger question regarding the below.  Any update on the 
>> status of this shift to xml?
>> 
>> I ask because I currently use Word and Endnote.  Because I am in the 
>> social sciences, no publisher will accept docs in TeX, so I want to 
>> find a simple way that I can use bib data and documents to produce pdf 
>> via LaTeX and/or ConTeXt and something that Word can understand (html 
>> and/or rtf; but am told Word can read xml, but don't know what this 
>> means in practice).  I still can't figure out how to do this though.  
>> Any thoughts/updates/ideas would be much appreciated!
>> 
>> Bruce
>> 
>> 
>> From: Taco Hoekwater <taco@elvenkind.com> 
>> Subject: Re: m-bib: passing extra information to \cite 
>> Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 14:48:06 +0200 
>> 
>> 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------
>> 
>> Hans Hagen wrote:
>> > 
>> > \definecomplexorsimple\cite
>> > 
>> > now \cite[bla] and \cite{bla} both work (but i favor the [] only 
>> approach).
>> 
>> Roughly speaking, this is what happens now. But soon we will probably 
>> have
>> calling conventions like \cite[...][...][..=..] or \cite 
>> {..}[..][..]{..}
>> (more or less the same as for \in), and supporting the latex syntax is
>> getting problematic. Besides that, there is usually other stuff wrong
>> with bibtex (latex) databases, like commands that are defined in the
>> preamble using \newcommand; \text... commands in the text; etc.
>> 
>> Eventually, I plan to phase out bibtex alltogether, and replace it with
>> an XML input filter (with a formalized DTD).
>> 
>> -- 
>> groeten,
>> 
>> Taco
>> 
>> 
>
>
>-- 
>groeten,
>
>Taco
>