[OS X TeX] BibDesk crossref

[Adam R. Maxwell]

On Jul 18, 2009, at 9:32 PM, david craig wrote:

>
> Adam-
>
> On Sat, 18 Jul 2009, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
>> On Jul 17, 2009, at 11:30 PM, david craig wrote:
>>> [Apropos of which, when I double click a field in an entry and try  
>>> to change the field name to one from the drop-down, or a new one,  
>>> nothing at all happens when I click OK.  The supposedly edited  
>>> field remains unchanged.  This feels a lot like a bug, or at best,  
>>> is very confusing.
>
> Ok, I think it's just sloppy interface design.  As far as I can  
> tell, it won't let you change or remove anything that's a default  
> field for that type, even though double-clikcing on a default field  
> brings up a sheet that seems to imply that you can.  You can only  
> fiddle with fields you add.

I've personally never tried editing the name of a default field until  
now, so it helps to have that additional information!  In the version  
I'm running here, if I rename the title field of an @article, it  
renames and then adds and empty title field.  So you're correct;  
essentially you can't remove/rename a default field for a type.  This  
is a bit odd; I think it would make more sense if those weren't  
editable at all.

>>> And shouldn't there be an easy way to ADD a field rather than  
>>> being limited to changing one of the existing ones?]
>>
>> Isn't there a "+" button at the bottom of your editor window?  Did  
>> you hide the status bar?
>
> No, and no -- not intentionally anyway.   That was the missing bit.  
> Makes more sense now.

Okay, that would be confusing if the default is to have it hidden for  
new users, especially since not all of those actions are available  
from the main menu.  I think that's a bug.

>>> Those aren't my real questions, though.  I've ticked "Duplicate  
>>> Title to Booktitle" and added "inbook" and "incollection" to the  
>>> list. However, it just doesn't do it.  The child shows the  
>>> parent's title in the "title" field, which is clearly incorrect,  
>>> and the "Booktitle" field remains empty. I have to make the  
>>> changes manually.
>>> Is this a bug, or am I just confused about what's supposed to  
>>> happen?
>>
>> The latter.  It adds Booktitle to the parent item and fills it with  
>> the value of the parent's Title.
>
> Got it.  I'd created several parent items before I saw and ticked  
> that preference.   BibDesk doesn't retroactively add a Booktitle  
> field to existing entries, so I was quite unclear on what was  
> supposed to occur. Much clearer now!

Ah, yes, it doesn't modify previously created ones.  You'd have to  
write an AppleScript to do that.  Glad you figured out what was going  
on...I still find crossrefs confusing, and I wrote a fair bit of that  
code :).

-- 
Adam

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