On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 9:36 AM, Rasmus <ras...@gmx.us> wrote:
> Hi Richard,
>
> First, thank you for looking into this. I learned something new from this
>
> > Pretty much all the other options we have talked about seem like they
> > will require multi-step, non-trivial installation procedures ("First
> > install {Node.js/Haskell/JVM ...}, then install
> > {citeproc-node/pandoc-citeproc/citeproc-java...}, then install our
> > wrapper script..."). Updating could require other manual operations of
> > similar complexity. Avoiding that kind of procedure will make citations
> > a lot more usable from Org for everyone.
>
> I think this is *very* important.
>
I totally agree.
> > 2) It is quite complete.
> >
> > Previously, I thought that it would be a similar amount of work to
> > communicate with Zotero from Emacs as any of the other CSL
> > implementations out there. However, after looking at zotxt a bit more
> > closely, I discovered that it has an (undocumented) API endpoint [3]
>
> This sounds amazing, but also dangerous. Do you know whether stabilizing
> the API has been discussed upstream?
>
I think the API Richard is referring to is *zotxt's* API, not Zotero's. So
"upstream" is a very short distance to an underground spring under our
house (Erik Hetzner).
The somewhat more widely-used Better Bibtex plugin also has provides an API
to the Zotero database (https://zotplus.github.io/better-bibtex/cayw.html).
In either case, it probably would be relatively easy to provide patches to
the maintainer if we run into trouble.
>
> > that pretty much does exactly what we need: it accepts a list of
> > citation objects, and returns a list of formatted citations and a
> > formatted bibliography, which can be inserted into the exported
> > document.
>
> Could you give an example of the sort of input you give? I.e. is it based
> on keys? From my bibtex-centric world view I imagine something like:
>
> I send key or pointer @K to a DB entry as well as a CSL-file pointer C,
> and maybe a desired output format F. I get a string back that is the
> formatting of the data behind @K formatted according to the rules in C,
> adapted to F.
>
> Is that correct? If so, does it support html, text and odt?
>
> Right now, IIUC, zotxt accepts only a *style name*, not a CSL file -- it
will locate the CSL file in the Zotero style list. It supports html and
text output formats, as well as the QuickKey syntax used by the ODF-scan
zotero plugin (https://github.com/Zotero-ODF-Scan/zotero-odf-scan). My
understanding is that providing fully-formed odt syntax is difficult,
because of the structure of the odt file, which I guess wants a bunch of
metadata that isn't trivial to provide. The recommended path right now is
to run ODF-scan on the odt from libreoffice -- it's an annoying extra step
that I was hoping to be able to avoid, but am not competent to program:
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/29308/7/rtfodf-scan-for-zotero/#Comment_226799
> This endpoint still needs a little bit of work, to generalize it and
> > make it easier to get the data in the format we need. (That is probably
> > why it is undocumented in the README.) But it requires much less work
> > than I thought it would, and much less work than it would be to get a
> > full-featured setup with something like citeproc-node.
>
> This is a very strong argument.
>
> At some point Matt talked about adding support for org citation syntax in
> citeproc-js. Would this be advantageous if going this route? I guess not.
>
Depends on whether you want to be able to request org-mode syntax from
zotero. Zotero uses citation-js internally; changes we make to citation-js
will eventually percolate up to zotero, and it's not impossible to replace
zotero's citeproc with one's own copy (even I can do it).
>
> >
>
> IMO we can leverage zotero as a tool, but we cannot enforce it as a
> bibliography manager.
>
yes
>
> > I still think Zotero + zotxt is the best option for non-LaTeX
> > citation processing, even for these folks. The ease of installation
> > (and removal) of the required programs alone makes it worth it, even if
> > you never actually populate a Zotero database. So given what I know at
> > the moment, I think our efforts would best be directed at making the
> > in-progress org-cite library communicate with Zotero via zotxt. What do
> > you think?
>
> +1, though re zotxt we should make sure Erik would want to move it to
> GELPA.
>
Basically I'm enthusiastic and glad you are taking up the challenge, since
matt's programming:snail's pace :: snail's pace:leopard run
