BibDesk with Mellel?

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kristian
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BibDesk with Mellel?

Post by kristian »

Hello to everyone in this forum from a new mellel user.
i have been playing around with mellel every now and then but started using it more seriously only recently having started to work on accademic papers and preparing my PhD thesis. it's a truly great program!

a first question to the forum:
does anyone have experience with using the BibDesk bibliography management application? I have seen that mellel offers support for integration with sente and bookends. how can i make mellel operate with BibDesk?

regards,
kristian
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Reiner
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Post by Reiner »

I think BibDesk and Mellel can't interoperate at the moment.
Reiner
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Post by nicka »

You could use Bookends as an intermediary, I suppose, since Bookends can handle BibTeX-style references.
So you could maintain your references in BibTeX and export them to Bookends, then use Bookends and Mellel together in the normal way.
danzac

Post by danzac »

kristian,
Perhaps I am wrong, but isn't BibTeX (and thus bibdesk) priimarily to use with LaTeX word processing? If you've abandoned LaTeX word processing for Mellel (smart move by the way) may I highly suggest moving to either Sente or Bookends.

Personally I choose Bookends hands down at the moment for the simple reson that Sente doesn't do multiple styles (i.e. you can't have a footnote format and a bibliography format). If you use Bookends for awhile you will quickly fall in love with it. If you are doing footnote citations, Bookends is the choice.

But if you are in the hard sciences and exclusively use in-text citations (APA) then Sente is an equally worthy choice. Sente is focused towards the hard sciences users and has some neat features that Bookends does not (yet) have. That they both work with Mellel at the programming level is really good too. It means you will get support on both sides if you run into problems.

And to boot, you get a discount off of Bookends if you are a student and additional discount if you already own Mellel. I'm not sure if the situation is the same for Sente or not. So, at least for Bookends, you're not breaking the bank. (It sounds like you are a student, so money is not an issue :wink: )

Hope this helps
rpcameron
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Post by rpcameron »

No, BibTeX does not necessarily indicate (La)TeX usage. BibTeX was created to be a bibliographic database format for TeX processing, but it can serve other purposes. BibTeX is a standard format any many online sources can export BibTeX formatted citations for journal articles you may find through them.

Also, I believe that the BibTeX format is a bit more exhaustive than the defaults offered by Bookends or Sente. (Also, since Bookends imports BibTeX, it's a bit odd to say that BibTeX is only for TeX usage.)

I don't personally use any reference manager, but if I were to, I think BibDesk would be at the top of my list because of the underlaying BibTeX format. (I would also like to see BibDesk intergration ... for the sake of completeness and fairness.)
— Robert Cameron
danzac

Post by danzac »

I know its not exclusively for LaTeX, I just said 'primarily'. At least, you get that impression from its sourceforge page.
"Also, I believe that the BibTeX format is a bit more exhaustive than the defaults offered by Bookends or Sente. (Also, since Bookends imports BibTeX, it's a bit odd to say that BibTeX is only for TeX usage.)"
I'm not sure why that is odd — it imports lots of formats — but Sente has an unlimited number of customizable fields (though I don't care for the implementation) and Bookends has 30 that are customizable according to reference type, so you aren't stuck with the defaults.

I'm not a coder, but perhaps the bigger issue would lay in the fact that Bibdesk is opensource. That means you may have (potentially) a rolling group of developers, which may make it hard for the Redlers to implement integration at the programming level. Sente is connected primarily to one individual, as is Bookends, making collaboration with Mellel easier I would think.

But if we were going for completeness and fairness, Endnote X would need to be added to this list as well. This may begin to add too much work for the Redlers and delay other worthy causes.
verma
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Re: BibDesk with Mellel?

Post by verma »

kristian wrote:does anyone have experience with using the BibDesk bibliography management application? I have seen that mellel offers support for integration with sente and bookends. how can i make mellel operate with BibDesk?
I use Bibdesk as my main bibliography tool. I have no problems importing my .bib file via Sente (in Sente, do Import and select your .bib file) - and then use Sente for the bibliography formatting tools it offers, and the integration with Mellel.

I'm still on Bibdesk because I still prefer LaTeX or ConTeXt, but Bibdesk is also much snappier than Sente.
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Post by simifilm »

danzac wrote:I know its not exclusively for LaTeX, I just said 'primarily'. At least, you get that impression from its sourceforge page.
"Also, I believe that the BibTeX format is a bit more exhaustive than the defaults offered by Bookends or Sente. (Also, since Bookends imports BibTeX, it's a bit odd to say that BibTeX is only for TeX usage.)"
I'm not sure why that is odd — it imports lots of formats — but Sente has an unlimited number of customizable fields (though I don't care for the implementation) and Bookends has 30 that are customizable according to reference type, so you aren't stuck with the defaults.
BibTeX/LaTeX is much more flexible than any other existing solution. Believe me, I've tried them all.
I'm not a coder, but perhaps the bigger issue would lay in the fact that Bibdesk is opensource. That means you may have (potentially) a rolling group of developers, which may make it hard for the Redlers to implement integration at the programming level.
No, the proble is that BibDesk is basically "passive". It just manages your bibliographic data. It knows little to nothing about bibliographic styles, that's the job of BibTeX. And BibTeX, on the other hand, doesn't integrate well into a word processor like Mellel. At the moment BiBDesk simply delievers reference keys for its citations to other apps, and the formatting is then done with BibTeX. To properly integrate with Mellel, BibDesk needed the possibility to create styles and hand them over to Mellel like Sente et al. That would be a big addition and so far no one has been willing to do that. So the problem is not really one of Open Source, or only in the sense that in OSS things only get implemented if someone is willing to do the work.
TLS
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Post by TLS »

danzac wrote:But if we were going for completeness and fairness, Endnote X would need to be added to this list as well. This may begin to add too much work for the Redlers and delay other worthy causes.
I believe, however, that Endnote has a larger user base than any of the other products, so it seems odd it has never been supported; I would guess there is some technical issue making it not practical. I know I have not switched over to something else due to other products' various limitations but mainly because I must share data with others who are Endnote users on Windows. I just do the "scan RTF" thing, but that is of course a one way deal; bringing the file back into Mellel and reformatting it with styles is not worth the time.
danzac

Post by danzac »

TLS wrote:I believe, however, that Endnote has a larger user base than any of the other products, so it seems odd it has never been supported; I would guess there is some technical issue making it not practical. I know I have not switched over to something else due to other products' various limitations but mainly because I must share data with others who are Endnote users on Windows. I just do the "scan RTF" thing, but that is of course a one way deal; bringing the file back into Mellel and reformatting it with styles is not worth the time.
I'm not sure about Sente, but trading stuff between Bookends and Endnote is a non-issue, just export citations in the endnote format, and they can be brought in through the endnote format. I imagine Sente is similar.

I'm all for the David vs. Goliath thing going on: Mellel/Bookends vs. Word/Endnote. :D (and if you remember your bible stories, David won)
simifilm
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Post by simifilm »

TLS wrote:
danzac wrote:But if we were going for completeness and fairness, Endnote X would need to be added to this list as well. This may begin to add too much work for the Redlers and delay other worthy causes.
I believe, however, that Endnote has a larger user base than any of the other products, so it seems odd it has never been supported; I would guess there is some technical issue making it not practical. I know I have not switched over to something else due to other products' various limitations but mainly because I must share data with others who are Endnote users on Windows. I just do the "scan RTF" thing, but that is of course a one way deal; bringing the file back into Mellel and reformatting it with styles is not worth the time.
I'm pretty sure Endnote is not supported because they don't care. Thomson is notorious for its bad support. Endnote hasn't seen any real new features in years, all they do is release a $100 bugfix every year. Although it's functionality is great it's a buggy piece of crap and I advise everyone not to use it.
TLS
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Post by TLS »

simifilm wrote:I'm pretty sure Endnote is not supported because they don't care. Thomson is notorious for its bad support. Endnote hasn't seen any real new features in years, all they do is release a $100 bugfix every year. Although it's functionality is great it's a buggy piece of crap and I advise everyone not to use it.
that is all true (though it is not as buggy as it once was by far!) but the fact remains that like MS Word, Endnote is the most widely used bibliography management program on both the Windows and Mac platforms. Bookends is strictly Mac-only.

And while Mellel support might have to be limited by the fact that Thomson may have no interest, I think some things might be possible on the Mellel-side alone with the Endnote citation codes hidden in the background, even if a "Scan RTF" action would need to be done at the end from within Endnote.

Anyhow, just a thought. I don't use the other applications that Mellel does support and will continue to use the "Scan RTF" feature of Endnote at the end of the writing process. No big deal. I have to do the same in Framemaker.
TLS
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Post by TLS »

danzac wrote:I'm all for the David vs. Goliath thing going on: Mellel/Bookends vs. Word/Endnote. :D (and if you remember your bible stories, David won)
Mellel does import and save MS Word documents, no doubt by virtue of the fact that Word support of some sort is almost mandatory despite what anyone may think of it or Microsoft.
nicka
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Post by nicka »

Mellel's support for Word import and non-support for Endnote makes perfect sense. Word has hundreds or thousands of times more users than Endnote. Even within academia, Endnote use, or use of any reference manager, is confined to a minority. Word, on the other hand, is used by almost everyone, whether they like it or not.
gnoli
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Post by gnoli »

Dear Kristian,
Bookends is the best application for bibliography management. Dot. I counsel you warmly to migrate to Bookends as soon as possible. The couple Bookends + Mellel is the only serious reason to go on standing Mac computers and not to migrate to Linux, with less expensive computers.
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