On 2008-03-19 10:26:51 +0100, Dominik Waßenhoven
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
Daniel Lohmann schrieb am 19.03.2008:
After finding myself spending more and more time with tweaking and
customizing bibliography handling I am considering switching to
biblatex.
[...]
1) Do you have to change your .bib-files?
Yes, slightly. biblatex introduces some new field types (like
maintitle, subtitle, titleaddon etc.). In order to get your
bibliography properly formatted, some changes to the bib file will be
necessary. I used jurabib previously, and it took me about 2-3 hours
with a >1000 entries bib file.
I have also switched to biblatex and did have to edit some of my
bibliography entries, e.g. biblatex offers a Library field and I am not
moving all data from “Location” to “Library” as it would otherwise
display in my document and be a mistake. However, I think that biblatex
really is the way to go and will some day replace all previous packages
so I do not mind the extra work.
2) Does it work well with hyperref (including backref support and so on)?
Yes, I have no problems so far.
Nor do I.
3) Do I really have to use the natbib options?
No, I don't use natbib at all. biblatex is absolutely independent from
natbib, there is only a natbib-compatibility-mode in order to use
natbib's commands (\citep, \citet etc.), not the ones biblatex provides
(\parencite, \textcite etc.).
Dito. Just put it in the preamble and forget about it.
4) Why is it the case that the path to the bib-files has to be either
absolute or the bib-file has to be in texmf? I really would like to
avoid both.
I have all my bib files in my local texmf tree. But it should work if
the bib file is in the same directory as the master tex file (though
I'm not sure if LyX can handle this).
No, LyX can not handle this (in my experience). Also, I sometimes
manage to give an absolute path and sometimes not, but it is okay for
me to simply put them in the texmf-tree. In my “working directory” I
simply put links to the bib-files.
5) Even though I never heard any complaints about the 0.7 version of
biblatex, it is still considered as "beta". Did you experience any
problems while using it?
I am using it a lot, and for a long time, and I had no serious problems
since version 0.6.
Same for me.
Regards,
Dominik.-
biblatex is a really, really cool package and is useful to anyone, from
physics to philosophy students. As far as I can see, it will still take
a while, until it will be useable in LyX as it has a completely
different approach to BibTeX in comparison to all previous packages. It
would be cool though to not only have it implemented in LyX some day,
but also to have a comfortable set-up window/dialogue for it, where one
could access all biblatex styles and options with the ease of a few
mouse-clicks (and maybe even create custom styles). If I knew how to
code, I would do that instantly but apart from some Turbo Pascal :)
that I learned at grammar school many, many years ago, I do not know
anything. However, integrating biblatex well into LyX would make LyX
really attractive even to users who so far have only used Word and Word
and Word and oh, ahem... Writer.
By the way, Dominik, do your custom-styles for biblatex work in LyX as
well (using a TeXLive 2007 distribution, the MacTeX package from
december 2007)?
Regards,
Maksi
