[Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
I raised this issue several months ago, but don't think I made myself clear. A problem I've run into is that if I import a reference with non-plain-text (Unicode?) character (an en-dash, an em-dash, an open or closed quote) in the abstract, it will require a save as in a different file format with a different file name. This occurs when using the default Western ASCII file format. I frequently recommend BibDesk to students and fellow scholars. However, I am loath to do so with anyone but the most technical -- this is a serious frustration for the average user, who will be confused by the issue. I typically cut the abstract, paste it into BBEdit and run the Zap Gremlins command to replace/remove the offending characters. I've tried to manually remove these characters from the abstract in BibDesk, but I find that sometimes they can be invisible. It would be great to have a strip out gremlins option to automatically convert these. I typically use EBSCO to retrive citations, and I'd guess this problem arises in about 20 percent of the time. Thanks again to all who work on development and support for BibDesk -- it really is an amazing tool. -c - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
We're certainly not going to automatically delete data, if that's what you're proposing. That's simply not an option. Christiaan On 19 Feb 2008, at 4:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I raised this issue several months ago, but don't think I made myself clear. A problem I've run into is that if I import a reference with non-plain-text (Unicode?) character (an en-dash, an em-dash, an open or closed quote) in the abstract, it will require a save as in a different file format with a different file name. This occurs when using the default Western ASCII file format. I frequently recommend BibDesk to students and fellow scholars. However, I am loath to do so with anyone but the most technical -- this is a serious frustration for the average user, who will be confused by the issue. I typically cut the abstract, paste it into BBEdit and run the Zap Gremlins command to replace/remove the offending characters. I've tried to manually remove these characters from the abstract in BibDesk, but I find that sometimes they can be invisible. It would be great to have a strip out gremlins option to automatically convert these. I typically use EBSCO to retrive citations, and I'd guess this problem arises in about 20 percent of the time. Thanks again to all who work on development and support for BibDesk -- it really is an amazing tool. -c - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I raised this issue several months ago, but don't think I made myself clear. A problem I've run into is that if I import a reference with non-plain-text (Unicode?) character (an en-dash, an em-dash, an open or closed quote) in the abstract, it will require a save as in a different file format with a different file name. This occurs when using the default Western ASCII file format. I frequently recommend BibDesk to students and fellow scholars. However, I am loath to do so with anyone but the most technical -- this is a serious frustration for the average user, who will be confused by the issue. Would it reduce the confusion to just save as UTF-8 by default? As long as TeX conversion is enabled, that should (usually) be fine for TeX users who work with ASCII exclusively. I save my files as UTF-8 just to avoid this problem, since the odd characters are almost exclusively in abstracts which never get printed in TeX anyway. -- adam - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
Christiaan, If you deleted all the data, think how much quicker everything would run! :-) Actually, I was thinking something more along the lines of a setting in the preferences that says, Replace non-printing characters with ~ or something similar to what BBEdit does to clean-up troublesome characters. See my reply to Adam in a follow-up e-mail. Thanks again for your reply, Christiaan! -Cloy We're certainly not going to automatically delete data, if that's what you're proposing. That's simply not an option. Christiaan On 19 Feb 2008, at 4:55 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I raised this issue several months ago, but don't think I made myself clear. A problem I've run into is that if I import a reference with non-plain-text (Unicode?) character (an en-dash, an em-dash, an open or closed quote) in the abstract, it will require a save as in a different file format with a different file name. This occurs when using the default Western ASCII file format. I frequently recommend BibDesk to students and fellow scholars. However, I am loath to do so with anyone but the most technical -- this is a serious frustration for the average user, who will be confused by the issue. I typically cut the abstract, paste it into BBEdit and run the Zap Gremlins command to replace/remove the offending characters. I've tried to manually remove these characters from the abstract in BibDesk, but I find that sometimes they can be invisible. It would be great to have a strip out gremlins option to automatically convert these. I typically use EBSCO to retrive citations, and I'd guess this problem arises in about 20 percent of the time. Thanks again to all who work on development and support for BibDesk -- it really is an amazing tool. -c - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
On 2008-02-19, at 2:24 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would it reduce the confusion to just save as UTF-8 by default? As long as TeX conversion is enabled, that should (usually) be fine for TeX users who work with ASCII exclusively. I save my files as UTF-8 just to avoid this problem, since the odd characters are almost exclusively in abstracts which never get printed in TeX anyway. -- adam If UTF-8 transparently deals with gremlins and plain text but Western ASCII does not, it would seem to make sense to have UTF-8 the default format as you suggest. The other related issue is that after I do convert my file to UTF-8, I get an annoying little message whenever I start BibDesk that says, The document will be opened with encoding Western (ASCII), but it was previously saved with encoding Unicode (UTF-8). You should cancel opening and then reopen with the correct encoding. If you go to Preferences-Files, you can change the Open and export BibTeX files using encoding to Unicode. That should stop the messages. I can see specifying a file format when I save (as), but why do I need to specify one when I open the document? Because BibTeX files that are generated by other applications or by hand or from the web don't have the encoding string saved at the top of the file that BibDesk puts in when you save a file. Hence, it has a default for those files that it can't tell what encoding scheme it was saved in. Which then makes BibDesk upset when you open a file that it *knows* is something else (e.g., UTF-8), but you've told it to open it as, say, Western ASCII. -AHM I see that there's a conversion option when pasting and exporting text... What I'm suggesting would simply add that functionality to importing. Thanks! -c - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
Would it reduce the confusion to just save as UTF-8 by default? As long as TeX conversion is enabled, that should (usually) be fine for TeX users who work with ASCII exclusively. I save my files as UTF-8 just to avoid this problem, since the odd characters are almost exclusively in abstracts which never get printed in TeX anyway. -- adam If UTF-8 transparently deals with gremlins and plain text but Western ASCII does not, it would seem to make sense to have UTF-8 the default format as you suggest. The other related issue is that after I do convert my file to UTF-8, I get an annoying little message whenever I start BibDesk that says, The document will be opened with encoding Western (ASCII), but it was previously saved with encoding Unicode (UTF-8). You should cancel opening and then reopen with the correct encoding. I can see specifying a file format when I save (as), but why do I need to specify one when I open the document? I see that there's a conversion option when pasting and exporting text... What I'm suggesting would simply add that functionality to importing. Thanks! -c - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
Re: [Bibdesk-users] Gremlins in the text
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Alexander H. Montgomery [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 2008-02-19, at 2:24 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would it reduce the confusion to just save as UTF-8 by default? As long as TeX conversion is enabled, that should (usually) be fine for TeX users who work with ASCII exclusively. I save my files as UTF-8 just to avoid this problem, since the odd characters are almost exclusively in abstracts which never get printed in TeX anyway. -- adam If UTF-8 transparently deals with gremlins and plain text but Western ASCII does not, it would seem to make sense to have UTF-8 the default format as you suggest. The other related issue is that after I do convert my file to UTF-8, I get an annoying little message whenever I start BibDesk that says, The document will be opened with encoding Western (ASCII), but it was previously saved with encoding Unicode (UTF-8). You should cancel opening and then reopen with the correct encoding. If you go to Preferences-Files, you can change the Open and export BibTeX files using encoding to Unicode. That should stop the messages. Correct, or use the Open... menu item and specify UTF-8 as the encoding. I can see specifying a file format when I save (as), but why do I need to specify one when I open the document? BibDesk is telling you that it might misinterpret characters in your file, since you're interpreting it as ASCII when it was last saved as UTF-8. Because BibTeX files that are generated by other applications or by hand or from the web don't have the encoding string saved at the top of the file that BibDesk puts in when you save a file. Hence, it has a default for those files that it can't tell what encoding scheme it was saved in. Which then makes BibDesk upset when you open a file that it *knows* is something else (e.g., UTF-8), but you've told it to open it as, say, Western ASCII. The encoding string in the file is actually ignored; it's strictly for human consumption. It's also ridiculously fragile, so can be misleading. The encoding BibDesk uses for the alert is stored in the extended attributes of the file. Incidentally, this also allows TextEdit on Leopard to determine the encoding, so you can safely use it to edit your file regardless of the encoding. Other applications using Cocoa to read text files can take advantage of this as well. -- adam - This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse012070mrt/direct/01/ ___ Bibdesk-users mailing list Bibdesk-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bibdesk-users
