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Re: Re: DOCBOOK: Announce: BibTex for Docbook
- From: "E.L. Willighagen" <egonw at sci dot kun dot nl>
- To: Markus Hoenicka <hoenicka_markus at compuserve dot com>,docbook-apps at lists dot oasis-open dot org
- Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 22:03:03 +0200
- Subject: Re: DOCBOOK-APPS: Re: DOCBOOK: Announce: BibTex for Docbook
- References: <200209031115.42886.egonw@sci.kun.nl><20020903113716.GG31628@sideshowbarker> <15733.4750.381163.881636@tipi.mininet>
- Reply-to: egonw at sci dot kun dot nl
On Tuesday 03 September 2002 21:50, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
> for people interested in a comparison between JReferences and RefDB
> I'd suggest to go back in the list archives about 1 year. We had a
> funny discussion back then.
>
> I haven't tested any recent releases of JReferences, but from what
> I've gathered from the current discussion I see the following main
> issues that set RefDB apart from JReferences:
>
> - RefDB works with DocBook XML and SGML documents, TEI XML documents,
> and LaTeX documents (with somewhat limited capabilities). Other
> SGML/XML document types can be added without modification of RefDB
> itself (just some stylesheet hacking).
Yes, that is a current advantage of RefDB.
> - RefDB does *not* require any changes in the DTDs. Documents remain
> valid against the stock DTDs, so using RefDB does not create an
> interchange issue.
In the next version JReferences will not require that too (thanx to Jirka
Kosek's ideas).
> - RefDB does not modify the SGML/XML source document. The bibliography
> is created as an external entity. The citations (which are actually
> xref elements) are rendered by pulling in the appropriate
> information from the bibliography element and are hyperlinked (in
> HTML and PDF output) to the corresponding references in the
> bibliography. The advantage of not modifying the source document is
> that reformatting the document for a different bibliography style is
> a snap.
JReferences does change the doc, but that is easy to change... Might be an
advantage too sometimes...
> - RefDB uses a bibliography style database to render citations and
> bibliographies according to a specific style of a publisher or of a
> publication. This includes aspects like the sequence of the elements
> (authors, year, title, journal, volume, issue, pages...), the
> rendering of the author names (FM Last, F.M. Last, F. M. Last,
> Last,F.M. and all other permutations), as well as the rendering in
> the output formats (volume bold or italics, journal names regular or
> italics etc). Both author/year and numeric citation styles are
> supported. The styles are defined as XML documents.
A tie?
> - In addition to the document-based bibliography output, RefDB can
> generate raw bibliographies in DocBook SGML/XML, TEI XML, RIS,
> BibTeX and a few other formats.
JReferences supports BibTeXML, DocBook, BibTeX at this moment only.
> - RefDB is a multi-user system. Users can share a common reference
> database and still maintain their personal info (notes, reprint status,
> availability etc).
>
> - RefDB uses a SQL database to store the references. The current
> stable branch uses MySQL, the development branch in CVS uses MySQL
> or PostgreSQL. Support for an embedded SQL library is in preparation.
These two are the reason why I continued JReferences after that discussion
about a year ago. I still think RefDB is an excellent program, but not if you
do not have a MySQL server around...
> - RefDB uses scriptable command-line clients as well as a web
> interface. This offers both a convenient graphical interface and the
> power of unix plumbing.
True. JReferences will have a editor in the future.
> - RefDB can store far more information per reference than actually is
> used to display the reference. Additional information includes
> an unlimited number of keywords, an URL to an electronic offprint,
> personal notes, availability information (where is that paper
> copy?), abstracts etc. This greatly simplifies retrieving the proper
> references and maintaining a large collection of paper or electronic
> offprints.
JReferences supports this too by using BibTeXML file database...
Many ways to do it...
> - RefDB can directly import RIS (the lingua franca of Windows
> reference databases), BibTeX and DocBook (with a little stylesheet
> tweaking) references. TEI import is in preparation.
JReferences support import of RIS, BibTeX, DocBook and BibTeXML.
> Therefore I wouldn't support the notion that RefDB and JReferences are
> "similar" but the decision is left to those who actually use and
> compare both apps.
The purpose is similar, and that was meant I think...
> To see the RefDB bibliography capabilities at work, I suggest to visit:
Anyone should do that. Its good software.
> http://refdb.sourceforge.net/examples.html
Egon