Thomas S. Dye writes: > Aloha Richard, > > Richard Lawrence <richard.lawre...@berkeley.edu> writes: > >> My point is not that the link syntax *can't* do enough. Rather, my >> point is that citations are conceptually distinct from links, and if we >> are going to adopt an official syntax for them, that syntax should >> reflect this conceptual distinction. This is better for document >> authors, because it is less work for us. It gives us the right tool for >> this particular job, instead of re-purposing a tool that, despite its >> power, is designed for a different job. It is thus better for the Org >> community as a whole. > > I agree that citations are conceptually distinct from links, but at the > same time they share many features. Both can refer to something outside > the Org mode document. Both can be replaced in the Org mode export with > something from outside the Org mode document. The fact that links can > be made to handle most users' citation needs is practical proof that the > similarities are more than superficial. > > Now, I agree with you that Org mode links are not ideal for citations. > Parsing the description is humbug and error-prone, and the descriptions > look ungainly in the Org mode document. I never remember to click > citation links in the "right" place! There is much room for improvement > here.
I am not sure how much better it could get. What did you have in mind? I could imagine for a cite link with several citations the click action could give you an ido-completing/helm selection buffer and you choose what you want to do from there. In org-ref the click action is user definable, so you can get what you want. > > You and others are advocating a separate syntax for links and citations, > which might indeed be the way to go. I can see it being much nicer than > the current state of affairs with Org mode links. The downside is that > it will mean learning another set of rules, in addition to the existing > rules for links. > > Several years ago, Samuel Wales suggested an extensible syntax example > using link features > (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2010-08/msg00404.html). > At the time it seemed to me that this was a Lisp-y approach because it > solved particular problems by generalizing or abstracting a language > feature to include particulars that had previously fallen outside its > ken. I wanted something like this while I was working on implementing > citation links for export to LaTeX. > I am totally for this idea! I have been pondering how to make a link element with extra data in it for a while. > Would it be feasible to generalize Org mode's link syntax, or make it > extensible, so the overlap of link with citation is complete? > > All the best, > Tom -- Professor John Kitchin Doherty Hall A207F Department of Chemical Engineering Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 412-268-7803 @johnkitchin http://kitchingroup.cheme.cmu.edu