[OS X TeX] Correcting errors in BibDesk

[Adam R. Maxwell]

On Oct 24, 2007, at 18:40, Michael Kubovy wrote:

> On Oct 24, 2007, at 9:02 PM, Adam R. Maxwell wrote:
>
>> On Oct 24, 2007, at 17:47, Michael Kubovy wrote:
> <snip>
>
>>> "Save" in the menu is grayed out, the "Refresh" seems to reload  
>>> the unedited file. It's not clear to me what the "Reopen" button  
>>> does.
>>
>> Reopen will open the file as you edit it, first creating a  
>> temporary file.  The Refresh button will reload the file from disk,  
>> in case you edited it by other means. Both buttons should have  
>> tooltips that state this if you hover the mouse over the button (we  
>> use tooltips fairly extensively).
>
> This to me is counter-intuitive: if I can edit a file in an  
> application, I should be able to save my changes. (But I'll be the  
> first to admit: an idea that appears counter-intuitive to one person  
> is to another an idea that cannot be countered.)

:)  The main idea is that it's really easy to screw up the file unless  
you're intimately familiar with BibTeX.  For instance, if you open the  
file with the wrong encoding, then edit and save it in that editor  
window, your file will likely be garbage.

The present approach allows you to incrementally fix syntax errors,  
and you always have the ability to go back to your original file in  
case of a serious error.  Of course, if you use BibDesk to manage your  
file, you should never see that editor window again!

> My 2¢-worth of intuition: If upon opening a file a backup were  
> created, and the user could decide how many backups to save (it  
> would be nice to have that in TeXShop),

Not sure what you mean here?  These intermediate files are created so  
the parser can identify line numbers and let you jump to them in the  
editor window, and they're not really backups.

You can enable regular automatic backups in the preferences, which  
applies to files that you're editing in the normal interface, so you  
don't lose data in case of a crash.

> and the editing were as powerful as using regular expressions (which  
> exists in TeXShop) then one wouldn't have to engage in acrobatics to  
> fix a .bib file.

You can use regular expressions (PCRE syntax) in that window's find  
panel, actually:  use the popup to change from textual to regex.  This  
should be true of all find panels in BibDesk.

-- 
Adam


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