[OS X TeX] Re: html output from bib file (BibDesk)

[James Owen]

Dear Adam,

Here are thoughts and feedback on a possible html export pref pane.  
BTW, the fast response and active interest in users' requests ideas  
is much appreciated, and part of what makes BibDesk a great program.

First considering the current preview preference pane, in the second  
section there is a menu to choose a bst file to produce a styled TeX  
preview. I can think of two ways to enhance the operation of this menu.
One is to have it look for all the bst files in a reasonable  
location, such as the standard texmf tree installed by the latex -  
the path could be defined in the first part of the pref pane, and add  
them to the list of options. Currently you have to type new ones in.
The second thing would be to have a preview button within the pref  
pane, so that you can see what the output will look like with that  
bst file.

Building on the preview pref pane model as an html export pref pane,  
much the same structure would work. The first half, the path to TeX  
section would not be necessary. All you would need would be to have  
the dropdown menu, which would list all template files contained in  
the ~/Library/App Support/BibDesk/ folder. In fact, two menus, one  
for the item template, and one for the html page template to give  
more flexibility. Then the same Edit and Reset buttons as you have  
already for the preview pref pane. The edit button might need to  
define a text editor of choice, BBEdit, TextEdit, Taco Html Edit etc.
Lastly, a preview panel, showing what the web page will look like,  
might be good, although without an accompanying css file, the  
usefulness of this would be limited.

The only other thing that would be nice for export, is to be able to  
export a styled bibliography into a Word processor, such as Word, or  
Pages. In fact, the html output accomplishes this easily, as both  
Word and Pages will import html quite nicely. Pages will even respect  
the css settings from a print.css file , and import the text styles  
accordingly, which is even better.

Yours,

James Owen

On 16 May 2006, at 10:52, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:

>
> On May 15, 2006, at 17:46, James Owen wrote:
>
>> I assume you know that you can change these by editing the  
>> htmlexporttemplate, and htmlitemexporttemplate files in
>> ~/Library/Application\ Support/BibDesk/ .
>
> This is only (partially) documented on our website at <http:// 
> bibdesk.sourceforge.net/export.html>, and I filed a documentation  
> bug so we can address that problem.  BibDesk's HTML export is  
> pretty powerful and flexible...but very few people know how to use  
> it, unfortunately!
>
>> Actually, I have several now, and it is a pain to change from one  
>> to the other. It would be nice to incorporate the export functions  
>> into a pref. pane for BibDesk, so that you can change your export  
>> template within the program, just like with the Preview pane.
>
> We've been discussing your RFE at <https://sourceforge.net/tracker/ 
> index.php?func=detail&aid=1488232&group_id=61487&atid=497426>.   
> Feel free to chime in with other feedback.
>
> regards,
> Adam
> ------------------------- Info --------------------------
> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
>          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/
>

------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/