"Lookup article from DOI" in Bookends Browser?

[macula]

Hi,

At the moment, the "Lookup Article from DOI" command invokes Safari (or, I guess, whatever browser is declared as 'default' in MacOS). Would it be possible to use the Bookends Browser instead?

My rationale: I tend to do the bulk of my bibliographic imports from COinS-enabled websites, using the Bookends browser. Unfortunately, however, the "Import > Import & Attach PDF" command usually fails to attach the PDF, even though I have setup IP authentication. Therefore only the bibliographic data is imported, including the DOI. Subsequently, the "Lookup Article from DOI" command allows me to easily jump to the journal webpage containing the PDF, but of course Safari does not provide a "proxy icon". Worse still, Safari does not allow "overriden" proxy settings, which are required for accessing the PDF, so I end up firing up Firefox, copying-pasting the URL of the PDF, downloading the PDF and attaching it to the reference. The Bookends Browser, with its potent "proxy icon", would eliminate all these steps.

[Jon]

Mmm, I see your point, but I think most people would prefer to have Bookends launch a real browser, which is more powerful and flexible than the built-in Bookends Browser. One thing that would help is if you declared Firefox as your default browser. That would cut down on several steps.

Jon
Sonny Software

[macula]

Your point is well taken but may plead for some compassion?! For those of us working in the humanities, the PDF import options offered by Bookends (which are otherwise unparalleled) are not nearly as effective as they are in the scientific and medical fields. We are practically limited to Auto-fill. Many of the most important journals are not available on JStor, and the Web of Science is clearly not geared towards the humanities. And this list of limitations is far from exhaustive!

Imagine having to import several items per day every day under these conditions—even with Firefox declared as default browser—and you will realize how this essential and repetitive task makes you wince after a while. It feels like some sort of 'mental tendonitis'! Bookends is too good to allow this to happen!

May I suggest—no, plead!—for a selectable preference between the Bookends Browser and Safari (perhaps in the 'internet' pane)? Importing is far too tedious for us in the humanities, and it is a terrible tease to know that the great range of Bookends techniques addressing this need fail in our case.

Thank you for giving this a second thought!

[Jon]

Well, I'm sympathetic.

I don't think this is worth another preference option, but if others chime in I'll listen. Anyone else care to comment? I suspect this is something only you (or very few) would use, but if I'm wrong I invite others to chime in.

Jon
Sonny Software

[macula]

I hate to persist—and understand the need for clarity and simplicity—but really, this is a major productivity drain for many of us, whether we know it or not. It could be the case that humanities users—who tend to be less inclined to utilize 100% of the possibilities afforded by their software tools—may not be aware of the problem because they've never experienced (or imagined) the elegance of its solution! So an apparent lack of massive demand for this feature (or any feature) is not always a useful metric.

As an alternative to an additional preference, may I suggest an additional menu command in the "Refs > DOI" submenu:
"Lookup Article from DOI (in Bookends Browser)".

This additional menu entry would not 'clutter' the UI to any significant extent, IMHO, whereas it would provide the currently missing link between DOIs and the Bookends Browser.

Thank you.

[Jon]

That means making the Lookup DOI a hierarchical menu (Default Browser; Bookends Browser), adding another level to a menu that is already hierarchical. But that is less obnoxious than a preferences option, and more transparent than another keyboard modification option. I'll think about that. In the end, I suspect that few people other than you will use it, though. Realize that Bookends is made for a wide audience (of student/scientist/academic types, anyway) and is already complex for beginners. I take this into account every time I'm asked to introduce a narrow feature of interest to a few. I don't mkae UI changes of any substance lightly, especially if there are workarounds (like copy/paste the URL from Safari to Bookends Browser). The virtual tag feature was a good example of a request I thought would have general appeal, and modifying preferences and the UI was worth it.

Jon
Sonny Software

[macula]

Thank you very much, Jon, for considering this feature too.

Just to clarify that I did not mean a hierarchical submenu in my earlier post
(Refs>DOI>Lookup Article from DOI>Lookup in Bookends Browser).

Although such an arrangement is of course possible, I simply meant an additional menu entry at the same level as the existing "Lookup Article from DOI" command.

In other words, the menu in its entirety could look like this:

. Refs
. |
. |——DOI
. . . . . .|——Lookup article from DOI (in default browser)
. . . . . .|——Lookup article from DOI (in Bookends browser)
. . . . . .|——Get DOI


Once again, many thanks.

[macula]

Thank you very much, Jon, for implementing this in the most recent update. In conjunction with the COinS-enabled website of my university library, Bookends now makes it a breeze to import PDFs and metadata from practically any database. Your app has become truly indispensable.

[macula]

By the way—I just noticed that the new functionality does not utilize the "EZproxy" prefix that we declare in the Bookends preferences. Is this intentional or a bug? It does seem like a bug because, unless the ezproxy is prefixed, the Bookends browser is unable to download articles from most databases, which require institutional subscriptions.

Thanks.

[Jon]

Sorry, an oversight on my part. I'll upload a silent update tonight, and you can download Bookends again tomorrow. If you run into any other issues please contact tech support.

Jon
Sonny Software