Hi Matija,

I can provide partial answers to your questions.

On Sat, 29 Dec 2007, Matija Šuklje wrote:

> * this might  be a tough one — (at least in Slovenia's legal circles) legal
> documents get cited for the first time (e.g. with \cite) the same way as in
> the bibliography (full name, abbrev, journal, all changes etc.), but for each
> next time the same legal act gets cited only it's abbrevation should be used.

Once I needed something similar for abbreviations. When the abbreviation 
is used for the first time include the full meaning of the abbreviation in 
parenthesis, later, only use the abbreviated form. The approach that I 
followed was approximately

\def\mycite{\dodoubleempty\domycite}

\def\domycite[#1][#2]%
    {\doifdefinedelse{mycite:#2}
        {\cite[#1][#2]}
        {cite author, title, etc.% I don't remember the exact commands
 	\setvalue{mycite:#2}{done}}

This way, \mycite will give the complete citation the first time, and only 
the number when used later on. This does not take care of the 
compatibility method of cite, viz. \cite{ref}.

> Also in connection with that — is it possible (already) to utilise \useskip so
> that not only the empty space of the missing field, but also it's separators
> (e.g. \inserteditor{ed: }{, }{}) are being skipped?

I am not sure I understand. From what I remember, if the editor is not 
present, only the last field will be used, so there will be no separators.

Aditya