[OS X TeX] Papers or BibDesk?

[Adam R. Maxwell]

On Apr 30, 2007, at 02:00, Bruno Voisin wrote:

> Le 29 avr. 07 à 21:18, Oliver Buerschaper a écrit :
>
>> On the other hand BibDesk is rather stable and for my purposes it  
>> does a good job keeping all my references together. However, I miss  
>> a few things like being able to group papers into subcategories of  
>> first level groups. But still BibDesk has been my number one choice  
>> for quite some time (and will probably remain so for a little  
>> while ;-)
>
> Do you mean it's possible with BibDesk to group papers based on  
> various types of metadata, and then to filter out and sort them and  
> prepare lists of the output?

Yes, although you first have to enter the metadata.

[...]

> To be more specific: below are examples of lists I do currently  
> through tedious cut-and-paste, which is clearly sub-efficient:
>
> <http://homepage.mac.com/bvoisin/.cv/bvoisin/Sites/.Public/Gorodtsov-All.pdf-zip.zip 
> >
> <http://homepage.mac.com/bvoisin/.cv/bvoisin/Sites/.Public/Gorodtsov-Waves.pdf-zip.zip 
> >
>
> Is this possible to do the same with BibDesk (without having to  
> perform some TeX or BibTeX programming, that is)?

Conceptually, yes, it is possible.  For instance, you could use a  
smart group to search by author for ((Gorodtsov or Teodorovich) and  
(internal waves)).  You can export that directly to RTF, or set up a  
template to display the items in the lower pane of BibDesk's main  
window (without subheadings).

> That's the kind of functionality I'm interested in for BibDesk at  
> the moment, together with the ability to organize PDF paper files  
> (group them in folders and subfolders, move them from one to the  
> other, a bit like you manage messages and mailboxes in email  
> software) and associate the medata for each paper to the  
> corresponding PDF file.

Keep in mind that the metadata for each PDF file is stored in BibDesk,  
and it uses file paths to track files (so moving them in Finder will  
cause breakage).  You can set up a custom filing system easily,  
though, and BibDesk will move and name the files based on your metadata.

> Originally I thought BibDesk was just a GUI for BibTeX, but  
> according to what I read in this list I have the impression BibDesk  
> has turned into a full-fledged bibliographic management tool, using  
> BibTeX as its underlying "database" engine.

You're basically correct on both counts, although BibTeX isn't used as  
an engine.  Sorting in BibDesk, for instance, doesn't use BibTeX (the  
program), so it actually sorts Unicode strings correctly.

If you have a BibTeX style you use (there must be one for JFM,  
right?), you can use TeX/BibTeX to preview your entries, and also copy  
\bibitem commands for direct inclusion in a TeX document.

-- 
Adam


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