[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 121958] New: Replace the Bibliography Database by a dialog to manually input new sources and to fetch from online sources via identifiers for citations/bibliography

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121958

            Bug ID: 121958
           Summary: Replace the Bibliography Database by a dialog to
                    manually input new sources and to fetch from online
                    sources via identifiers for citations/bibliography
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: 3.3.0 release
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: Writer
          Assignee: libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: vermelhusco1904 at gmail.com

Created attachment 147343
  --> https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/attachment.cgi?id=147343&action=edit
The Manage Sources Dialog from Word (equivalent to Writer's Bibliography
Database)

The current Biblioghraphy Database to manage bibliography is a complete mess,
unfriendly for users and nearly useless to perform any actual
citation/bibliography management. It does not alow to select citation style and
the excess of columns that are shown is completely overwhelming and visually
confusing to edit the citation styles.

I would like to propose that a revamped dialog is adopted that allow an user to
more easily identify what sources are available in a document. 
Namely, the system present in Word allows an user to search by relevant info of
a citation (author, title, tag or year) and to select a source from a Master
list to a selected list.

Furthermore, it provides a preview of how citations and the bibliography looke
like with the selected citation style (allthough it does not allow you to
select citation style in this dialog - this could be implemented in a re-work
of the Writer management system).

An user can select New to manually add new sources or Edit existing sources.

Zotero uses a superior system, with a drop-down menu that allows to specify if
it is:
An article in a journal
An article in a scientific journal
A Document
A book
A section of a book
Etc, etc, etc

Furthermore, Zotero also adds sources from online origin via identifiers. These
identifier are DOI, PMID, ISBN or arXiv ID. 

When an user provides one of these identifier codes, a new source is created
with all the fields with the relevant info present in the identifier source
automatically filled.
In the modern world, this is the ESSENTIAL feature for a citation/bibliography
manager since it saves an enormous amount of time for an user to fill
information about citation/bibliography sources.

Therefore I propose that:
1 - the current Bibliography Database system is replaced by a more UI friendly
dialog, 
2 - that it's name is changed to Citation/Bibliography Manager,
3 - that this dialog allows to manually add sources and fill information for
these sources,
4 - that this dialog allows an user to use identifiers to automatically add
sources from online origin,
5 - that allows an user to select different citation styles and add different
citation styles besides the pre-installed ones from the CSL repository.

These are the barebones features of a decent citation/bibliography management
systems. 
Software like Mendeley or Zotero offer plenty of other features that are
unnecessary in Writer. However, if Writer is to provide a manager that is not
stuck in the 19990's then it needs these improvements. Otherwise remove the
Bibliography manager and simply include a dialog that directs a user to open
source reference managers like Zotero.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice-bugs/attachments/20181207/0775244d/attachment-0001.html>