Discussion:
Translation and Keywords-to-Tags conversion
Frederik Elwert
2007-05-25 10:10:15 UTC
Permalink
Hello!

I'm just checking out referencer to see if it satisfies my needs better
than my current bibliographical tool (pybliographer).

Since Referencer doesn't ship with a German translation, I made one
(with the Italian mo-file as a template). I didn't find all the strings
in that file, but I hope it's useful anyway, there are only few
missings. What's the best way to get a recent pot-file? I'd complete my
translation if needed.

Until now, I added a Keywords field to my BibTeX entries to have some
kind of tag support. That pybliographer doesn't support tags directly
was the main reason for me to look for alternatives. Since the Keywords
don't get converted into Tags during import, I wrote a little python
script that takes a freshly imported reflib-file and adds tags according
to the (space-separated) Keywords-list. I don't know if this is useful
for anybody else, but now that I wrote it, I can share it anyway.

I have around 150 tags, since I used keywords quite a lot to structure
my bibliography. This might be quite much and not really what tagging in
referencer was made for. But I'd like to share some ideas that would
make dealing with tags in referencer much easier for me. I don't know if
it would help other people, too, so maybe this is just not the scope for
referencer.

* Alphabetic ordering of tags. Scrolling through a list of 150
tags is really horror when there is no ordering at all.
* Text-field for adding tags to a document. I'd really like the
preferences dialogue for a document to have a simple text field
into which I can type the appropriate tags as a comma-separated
list. When dealing with many tags, this is much easier for
frequently used tags then searching the list.
* Ad-hoc hierarchy in tag list. This is quite a big feature
request, but a really useful feature, I think. Some applications
that support tags (like ccmixter.org) allow selecting more then
one tag to refine the selection (currently referencer behaves
opposite: When you select several tags, it performs a OR search,
not an AND search). Additionally, only tags that appear together
with the selected tag(s) are shown.
In a desktop app like Referencer, this maybe could be achieved
as an ad-hoc tree-view. Tags should be expandable and show tags
that exist together with them as children. A bibliographical
tool that I once used hat a feature similar to this, and I
really liked it:
Loading Image...

This were just my first impressions using referencer, and I hope I
didn't bore you too much...

Cheers,
Frederik
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John Spray
2007-05-25 14:10:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by Frederik Elwert
Since Referencer doesn't ship with a German translation, I made one
(with the Italian mo-file as a template). I didn't find all the strings
in that file, but I hope it's useful anyway, there are only few
missings. What's the best way to get a recent pot-file? I'd complete my
translation if needed.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's been some duplicated
effort here -- over the last week or so a German translation has been
done on launchpad.net, which we recently switched to for translating
referencer. Joachim Sauer did that one, perhaps you two could
collaborate.
Post by Frederik Elwert
Until now, I added a Keywords field to my BibTeX entries to have some
kind of tag support. That pybliographer doesn't support tags directly
was the main reason for me to look for alternatives. Since the Keywords
don't get converted into Tags during import, I wrote a little python
script that takes a freshly imported reflib-file and adds tags according
to the (space-separated) Keywords-list. I don't know if this is useful
for anybody else, but now that I wrote it, I can share it anyway.
Are these keywords space separated, comma separated or what? Could you
send a sample bibtex file (off-list if you prefer)?
Post by Frederik Elwert
I have around 150 tags, since I used keywords quite a lot to structure
my bibliography. This might be quite much and not really what tagging in
referencer was made for. But I'd like to share some ideas that would
make dealing with tags in referencer much easier for me. I don't know if
it would help other people, too, so maybe this is just not the scope for
referencer.
* Alphabetic ordering of tags. Scrolling through a list of 150
tags is really horror when there is no ordering at all.
Agreed, sorting the tags is already on the todo list.

I'm a bit surprised that you have quite such a large number of tags: is
this a really massive bibtex file, or do you just tag very finely?
Post by Frederik Elwert
* Text-field for adding tags to a document. I'd really like the
preferences dialogue for a document to have a simple text field
into which I can type the appropriate tags as a comma-separated
list. When dealing with many tags, this is much easier for
frequently used tags then searching the list.
Nice idea. The UI for tagging is undergoing some rethinking on my end
at the moment, I'm thinking to move more in the direction of a tag
browser in the main window, then add/remove tags in the context menu for
each document. A text field for tags in the properties dialog would
complement this nicely.
Post by Frederik Elwert
* Ad-hoc hierarchy in tag list. This is quite a big feature
request, but a really useful feature, I think. Some applications
that support tags (like ccmixter.org) allow selecting more then
one tag to refine the selection (currently referencer behaves
opposite: When you select several tags, it performs a OR search,
not an AND search). Additionally, only tags that appear together
with the selected tag(s) are shown.
In a desktop app like Referencer, this maybe could be achieved
as an ad-hoc tree-view. Tags should be expandable and show tags
that exist together with them as children. A bibliographical
tool that I once used hat a feature similar to this, and I
http://www.winload.de/bilder/screenshots/47365/Bibliographix.gif
I believe that epiphany does something similar: I guess the algorithm
does something like recognising that certain tags are only found along
with others in order to recognise a hierarchy. Could get quite
complicated, I think there would have to be some threshold (~30 tags?)
where this behaviour kicked in.
Post by Frederik Elwert
This were just my first impressions using referencer, and I hope I
didn't bore you too much...
Feedback is always appreciated.

Regards,
John
Frederik Elwert
2007-05-26 10:40:41 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Spray
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's been some duplicated
effort here -- over the last week or so a German translation has been
done on launchpad.net, which we recently switched to for translating
referencer. Joachim Sauer did that one, perhaps you two could
collaborate.
Oh, I realised that too late - but I haven't spent too much time on it,
so it's no problem...
Post by John Spray
Post by Frederik Elwert
Until now, I added a Keywords field to my BibTeX entries to have some
kind of tag support. That pybliographer doesn't support tags directly
was the main reason for me to look for alternatives. Since the Keywords
don't get converted into Tags during import, I wrote a little python
script that takes a freshly imported reflib-file and adds tags according
to the (space-separated) Keywords-list. I don't know if this is useful
for anybody else, but now that I wrote it, I can share it anyway.
Are these keywords space separated, comma separated or what? Could you
send a sample bibtex file (off-list if you prefer)?
The keywords are space-separated. My former bibliography tool added
keywords like that, but I had preferred comma-separated keywords...

A typical entry looks like this:

@Book{Bahro59,
Author = "Rudolf Bahro",
Title = "Logik der Rettung. Wer kann die Apokalypse aufhalten?
Ein Versuch {\"u}ber die Grundlagen {\"o}kologischer Politik",
Publisher = "Edition Weitbrecht",
Keywords = "Apokalypse Kritik Politik",
Address = "Stuttgart, Wien",
abstract = "Gr{\"u}ner Fundamentalismus - was ist das?",
year = 1987
}

I don't know if anybody else uses the keywords field like this. It is no
real standard field anyway, although it's a quite common extension. But
I haven't found any specification about the keyword separator.
Post by John Spray
Post by Frederik Elwert
I have around 150 tags, since I used keywords quite a lot to structure
my bibliography. This might be quite much and not really what tagging in
referencer was made for. But I'd like to share some ideas that would
make dealing with tags in referencer much easier for me. I don't know if
it would help other people, too, so maybe this is just not the scope for
referencer.
* Alphabetic ordering of tags. Scrolling through a list of 150
tags is really horror when there is no ordering at all.
Agreed, sorting the tags is already on the todo list.
Ah, good!
Post by John Spray
I'm a bit surprised that you have quite such a large number of tags: is
this a really massive bibtex file, or do you just tag very finely?
Indeed I tag quite finely. I have about 250 entries in my file, and I
add tags for topic, used methods, used theory, but I also add tags for
my personal projects, so that I easily find all literature I used for my
thesis or something. The idea is that I can easily find literature that
describes religious fundamentalism (topic) with a rational choice
approach (theory) and uses a specific method, etc.
Post by John Spray
Post by Frederik Elwert
* Text-field for adding tags to a document. I'd really like the
preferences dialogue for a document to have a simple text field
into which I can type the appropriate tags as a comma-separated
list. When dealing with many tags, this is much easier for
frequently used tags then searching the list.
Nice idea. The UI for tagging is undergoing some rethinking on my end
at the moment, I'm thinking to move more in the direction of a tag
browser in the main window, then add/remove tags in the context menu for
each document. A text field for tags in the properties dialog would
complement this nicely.
That sounds good. By the way, I also like the fancy tag thing you sent
through the list.
Post by John Spray
Post by Frederik Elwert
* Ad-hoc hierarchy in tag list. This is quite a big feature
request, but a really useful feature, I think. Some applications
that support tags (like ccmixter.org) allow selecting more then
one tag to refine the selection (currently referencer behaves
opposite: When you select several tags, it performs a OR search,
not an AND search). Additionally, only tags that appear together
with the selected tag(s) are shown.
In a desktop app like Referencer, this maybe could be achieved
as an ad-hoc tree-view. Tags should be expandable and show tags
that exist together with them as children. A bibliographical
tool that I once used hat a feature similar to this, and I
http://www.winload.de/bilder/screenshots/47365/Bibliographix.gif
I believe that epiphany does something similar: I guess the algorithm
does something like recognising that certain tags are only found along
with others in order to recognise a hierarchy. Could get quite
complicated, I think there would have to be some threshold (~30 tags?)
where this behaviour kicked in.
I agree, this would be a quite large feature extension and would make
sense with a larger number of tags. But then it offers great flexibility
and allows for searches like I mentioned above, i.e., to refine your tag
selection when one tag just has too many hits.

But if it's just me who uses tags as extensively, it definitively not
worth the work... ;-) It would be good to find out if others would have
a benefit from such a feature.

Now I'm just excited to see what the future will bring for referencer,
and I wanted to thank you for the great work so far!

Cheers,
Frederik
John Spray
2007-05-26 21:54:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Frederik Elwert
The keywords are space-separated. My former bibliography tool added
keywords like that, but I had preferred comma-separated keywords...
Which tool was that? Space-separation is very troublesome, because it
fails completely when tags have spaces in their names, which is
currently permitted in referencer.

John
Frederik Elwert
2007-05-27 11:26:03 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Spray
Post by Frederik Elwert
The keywords are space-separated. My former bibliography tool added
keywords like that, but I had preferred comma-separated keywords...
Which tool was that? Space-separation is very troublesome, because it
fails completely when tags have spaces in their names, which is
currently permitted in referencer.
It was Bibliographix, I think it's primarily used in Germany. I totally
agree that space separated keywords are crap and referencer shouldn't
care about that too much. If it is anyhow intended to have some sort of
BibTeX-Keywords-to-Tags conversion, this could also be one-way. Maybe
have an option to tell whether the BibTeX-Keywords are space- or
comma-separated and then split them into Tags. If export of tags as
Keywords is needed, I think comma-separated should be enough - unless
anybody finds a spec for BibTeX-Keywords saying anything contrary.

The python script I wrote uses space-separation, but this could very
easily be changed. The script was a quick-and-dirty attempt to deal with
what I had, not to deal with any possible constellations.

Cheers,
Frederik

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