Feature Request: Context Sensitive Quotation Marks

[maier.de]

Hey there everyone,

What do you think about feature like context sensitive quotation marks? I'd really like to have a feature like that in Bookends (actually I consider this to be a crucial feature for every bibliographic manager). When entering data, I don't want to think of how the bibliography will be formatted afterwards. But: When in a title of some article occur quotation marks, you have to decide whether or not in the bibliographic style title of articles are formatted in quotation marks or not, since in one case it will be necessary to enter double quotation marks whereas in the other case you will be forced to enter single quotation marks. Of course, it is possible to do some polishing once all the other formatting is done, but it would still be nice to let this be done by Bookends itself manual formatting. Do others consider this as well to be an important or at least nice-to-have feature?

Denis

[Jon]

To make this clear (to me, anyway), what is being asked is that if you have a title with quotations marks, like this:

Thoughts on "Death In Venice"

and the format calls for the title to be surrounded in quotes, now Bookends will output:

"Thoughts on "Death In Venice""

What is being requested is that Bookends output (notice the apostrophes where the original double quote marks were):

"Thoughts on 'Death In Venice'"

I can have Bookends automatically convert double quote marks to apostrophes (when it sees that you have a quote mark in the format before the title), but would anyone object? Might that cause problems for you?

Jon
Sonny Software

[ozean]

There is quite a bit of variability here: different quotation marks in different languages, different styles in one language etc.

Although I would not object against implement some basic functionality, the details are probably difficult:

en-US: “” and ‘’ (I think en-GB might even be a little bit different?)

de-de: „“ and ‚‘ (normal style)

de-de: »« and ›‹ (print style)

fr-fr: «» and ‹› (there might also be some special issues with spaces, which I am not really sure about)

…

what do you do if the citations that are entered are only using " and ' instead of the typographic characters? What about " as the inch sign? Or a mix of all that?

[kjmatthews]

I agree that this is both desirable and probably quite tricky. I would be more interested in see Bookends output typographic quote marks rather than ' and " without having to enter them myself, but I suspect there are differing opinions on this matter as well.

[NewBookendsUser]

Has anything been done on this topic since 2009? I just stumbled across the same issue these days ... As by now, smart quotes for different languages is a great feature; might it not just be possible to implement this feature

I can have Bookends automatically convert double quote marks to apostrophes (when it sees that you have a quote mark in the format before the title), but would anyone object? Might that cause problems for you?

for the different cases when formats using quotation marks for article titles etc. are used? Then UK ' should become ", US " should become ', German " to ' and so on. I can imagine (also because it seems to not have been done by now) that this is a huge workload and there may be other things higher on the priority list, but it really would be a big improvement; by now, I would have to manually adjust all occurrences of quotation marks inside quotation marks when writing for a foreign language context.
Might there perhaps be a "master solution" possible, to tell BE which language should be used and it would automatically combine this information with the existence or non-existence of quotation marks in a format to produce such a context sensitive result?

Hans

[NewBookendsUser]

Once again I should have looked a bit closer: As I always entered - quite stupidly - quotation marks via the special characters menu and didn't realize that it automatically can change the signs when entered via the keyboard, the language-specific problem has never been one. Bookends was once more smarter than me ...
There just remains the (comparatively small) problem of formats where there are no quotation marks for article titles etc. (as,once again, traditionally in Germany). If there might be a way to handle this: great, if not: no big deal either.

Sorry for troubling and thanks for your always great support!

Hans

[NewBookendsUser]

And for a third time: I just detected a minor fault:

When entering single quotation marks, and the second of two is followed by a colon, period etc., BE in German smart quote setting changes the first correctly (to a low "9"), but makes the second incorrectly a high "9" instead of "6".

Hans

[Jon]

You'll have to explain that a bit better, preferably with a simple example.

Jon
Sonny Software

[NewBookendsUser]

Sure: Its seems always to happen when a quotation mark is located next to a punctuation mark or a quotation mark that is part of the format. Three examples: One with a format that uses German double q.m. for articles etc. and with single q.m. for inside the double q.m.:

German single quotation marks in a format with double quotation marks for articles etc.

German single q.m..png (32.44 KiB) Viewed 11169 times

The first single q.m. should be a low "9" instead of a high "6", the one after "Rom" should be a high "6" instead of a high "9"; around "Geschichte" (where there is no punctuation etc.) it is alright.

When entering double q.m. inside the double q.m. it are only the first q.m. before "Karthago" that are affected:

The same with double q.m. inside double q.m.; wrong one before Karthago

German double q.m..png (32.58 KiB) Viewed 11169 times

The same is the case when using English smart quotes with double q.m. in the format and singles inside:

Wrong one before Karthago

English single q.m..png (32.24 KiB) Viewed 11169 times

I hope this has somehow become clear ...

Hans

[Jon]

What I want to see is one simple example, please, of what the format order field is, what you entered in the title field, and what Bookends output. One example is all, three lines of text, no pictures (so I can copy/paste):

order field

title

output


Thank you.

Jon
Sonny Software

[NewBookendsUser]

The format order field is:
a (d) "t", j v: p–. (for journal articles), a {(d [u11])^(d)} "t", `in `v|~, Bd. ~u1|~: ~u4|~, übers. von ~u3*|~, hg. von ~e|~, ~u2~. Aufl.~|~ (~u13~ Bde.)~|~. ~l`: `p–. (for book chapters)

Titles are (e.g. journal article):
'Where the Lord of the Sea Grants Passage to Sailors Through the Deep-Blue Mere No More': The Greeks and the Western Seas

Output is (journal article, wrong ones marked red):
Nesselrath, H.-G. (2005) „‘Where the Lord of the Sea Grants Passage to Sailors Through the Deep-Blue Mere No More’: The Greeks and the Western Seas“, G&R 52: 153–71.

Hans

[Jon]

So the proper output would be

„‚Where the Lord of the Sea Grants Passage to Sailors Through the Deep-Blue Mere No More‘: The Greeks and the Western Seas“

Correct?

Jon
Sonny Software

[NewBookendsUser]

Exactly! As I said above (pictures 2 and 3), the same (or something similar) also happens with double quotation marks inside double quotation marks (but that is not a relevant variant) and with smart quotes set to English.

Hans

[Jon]

This is fixed in 12.0.5. Try it when it comes out and post here if you still see problems.

Jon
Sonny Software

[NewBookendsUser]

Thanks!
Hans