[OS X TeX] Reference managers

[Thomas A. Schmitz]

On Oct 25, 2007, at 2:00 AM, "Adam R. Maxwell" wrote:

> Papers, Bookends, EndNote, and Sente all support BibTeX to varying  
> degrees.  What are you looking for that BibDesk doesn't have?   
> We're always interested in making it suck less ;).
>
> -- 
> adam

OK, since you mention it: I was having trouble with the search  
function and wildcards. The reference to the search function really  
sucks; it just says this:

For example, the following query includes Boolean, prefix, and suffix  
searching:

`appl* OR *ing'

This query will return documents containing words that begin with  
"appl" as well as documents that contain words that end with "ing".



As far as I can see (and I tried a lot), there is no real regular  
expression search. I was trying to filter my database for entries  
that have either 'Electra' or 'Elektra' in any field. But "Ele*tra"  
would in effect search for two strings, 'Ele*' and 'tra' -- useless,  
IMHO.



So I don't quite agree with "forget the rest." Filtering with real  
regular expressions and creating "virtual databases" is possible with  
ebib, a bibtex tool for emacs (http://ebib.sourceforge.net/), which I  
like a lot, and (if you're not scared of the command line), bibtool  
(http://www.gerd-neugebauer.de/software/TeX/BibTool.en.html) has very  
advanced searching and filtering options. This is much more powerful  
than this "wildcard" business.



Nevertheless, I use Bibdesk a lot and like it very much. I just don't  
think that it is the only tool out there worth mentioning.



Thomas


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