I've banged this drum before but I might as well do it again. Mellel works to have tight(er) integration with both Bookends and Sente. I would really love to see the REMOVAL of the need to scan a document.
Instead, footnotes should be formatted instantly when copied from Sente or BE. This would make Mellel a true WYSIWYG word processor— right now we are still looking at citation codes in our document— scanning (particularly footnoted documents) radically alters the layout of our document. This need not be the case.
So I request (again ) that the redlers work with the Sente and BE developers to bring this to fruition for us. Thanks
I understand the virtues of what you suggest and I myself prefer to have the draft with final citation style during most of my work. However, there probably are "cons," including reduced modularity of code and risks of instability. In the meantime, I can't say that I see much of a problem (at least with Bookends, which is what I use). I scan frequently, more or less each time I get ready to edit, print, or both.
Speculation on "cons." Let's say that I had permanent citation "Smith (2009)" but at some point I realized that it should be "Smythe (2008)". If Mellel had a preference setting causing citations to be put into permanent form immediately, then what do you have in mind for how the correction would be made?
a. If you had in mind an automatic link that would do the updating, I would regard that as very undesirable and much in the mode of Microsoft. Such links increase complexity of code, create numerous vulnerabilities, and often don't work.
b. If you had in mind that I would delete the earlier citation and reenter the corrected one, that might be ok, but it would require me to find the earlier citation, which might be in multiple places.
c. If you had in mind that the object represented by the permanent citation would still have all the information necessary to allow automatic updating if a scan were performed, then...maybe. However, I see the possibility of errors. Someone who didn't ordinarily do scans might not remember that one was needed because of corrections in the data base.
With the current procedure, I often make numerous corrections of bibliographic data, all of which are reflected automatically as soon as I scan the next time without my having to find the earlier citations, delete them, etc. As mentioned above, I scan frequently and encounter no problems. The Bookends developer has in the past recommended not scanning until the very end stage, but I see no reason for that conservatism based on my own experience and--like you--I prefer to read drafts that look as intended. WSYIWYG is a click away (of the Scan button).
In your example of a name error, the name would be changed in BE and a rescan would fix it.
There is something fairly similar that already exists with BE if you look in the preferences— you can paste in based on a format. The problem is that BE, not having the ID number, needs validation of all of the citations. What would be more ideal is some sort of invisible citation ID in the reference or something like that.
This would enable a rescan in a different format as well. What I envision is not like Endnote/Word— but doesn't seem that complicated in my head as what you're making it out to be
It seems that your concept is what I refer to as case c. I don't see any deep problems with that. I'm with you in preferring the draft to look "final" with respect to citations at all times. Perhaps the Redlers and/or the Bookend developer will agree. There may, however, be something we're missing.
This would be interesting. I would imagine "c" would be the required method.
Perhaps a "scan on open" preference setting would remove the problem of forgetting to rescan documents.
Also, clicking on a footnote that is controlled by Bookends or Sente would either send you to that program, or pop up a modal window from that program with the item details for you to edit. Saving would then invoke a rescan, which means that the scanning process would need to be very fast.
) that the redlers work with the Sente and BE developers to bring this to fruition for us. Thanks