[OS X TeX] Crossrefs and BibDesk

[Jon Hanson]

>> I wish to refer to separate chapters of an edited volume.  Each
>> chapter has its own title and authors.  My reading of Kopka & Daly
>> (3rd ed) led me to think that I should thus use the "book" type for
>> the parent record and the "incollection" type for the child
>> records.  What I find is that BibDesk pulls the "Title" field from
>> the parent record and puts it in the "Title" field of the child
>> record, but I think it should go to the "Booktitle" field.  Am I
>> correct?
>>
>
> Yes, this is what should happen, and it is what actually happens in
> my experience -- I use crossrefs a lot for the described incollection/
> book scenario (without and with BibDesk), and it has always worked  
> fine.
>
> Can you provide a sample .bib file with one book and one or some
> incollection items which does not work as expected for you?
>
> Best,
> Matthias

I think I figured out the source of my difficulties.  If you take a  
book entry in which "Title" is entered but "Booktitle" is nonexistent/ 
empty and then use that entry to create a child record in BibDesk  
(type: incollection), Title gets copied to Title but Booktitle in the  
child record remains empty.  I think it is not the desired behavior  
although I understand why it is happening.

This does not happen when I start by creating a brand new book parent  
record in BibDesk because BibDesk automatically copies whatever is in  
Title down to Booktitle (adding the Booktitle field automatically in  
the process).  Then, the child record is created, both Title and  
Booktitle get copied to the child fields of the same name.  This is  
better, but I think it would be better still if the Title field in  
the child record were left blank, since it will nearly always (if not  
always) be different from Booktitle in this book/incollection  
scenario.  The child's Title field can be still edited, of course,  
but to change it one must click through a warning dialog saying that  
a cross-referenced field is about to be changed.

I think (may be wrong about this) that older versions of BibDesk did  
not automatically create a Booktitle field for book entries.  It is  
those older entries in my database that caused me the described  
trouble when I tried to set up cross-referencing.

Those with more experience using cross-references please let me know  
if I am off  base, for I filed a bug report on the BibDesk page.   
What I think should happen is that the Title field on the child  
record should not be linked by default to the parent record and that  
Booktitle on the child record should get filled from Booktitle on the  
parent record if that field exists there but from Title if it does not.

Now, it be really cool if BibDesk automatically started in type  
"incollection" when you option-click on a book entry and choose the  
"New Publication with Crossref" option!

In any event, I absolutely love BibDesk.  Cross-referencing is very  
slick once I corrected the fields.

Jon Hanson
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