Bookends 12.5.2 Feedback

[Nhaps]

There is no stopping to making this software better each time. Congratulations to you Jon and your team. I created a feedback thread for the last version and 55 replies followed. This time I have the pleasure of doing it again.

1. The feature that enables one to arrange fields is superb, thank you, thank you. I appreciate the two-line spacing for Journal and Volume (which also contains Book title for chapter in a book). But for me the three-line for authors and Serial editors is an overkill, I think two-line spacing would do it. But this is not my main request.

2. Major request: I would like to see Publisher and Address (Location) fields cut in half. Forgive me but who would need that much space, a waste of real estate in my view. They should be side by side, taking one-line space

3. Minor request: Standalone window is fantastic, but what if I want to use both? In fact we used to use Library window for editing plus the standalone, especially when one is reproducing multiple references for chapters in a book.

4. DOI is becoming increasingly important in academic research as new style manuals are requiring their insertion. In view of this development, I would like to request the ability to bring DOI to the primary/main Library window. An idea would be to use command to drag DOI to Main window.

Ps. Forgive me but I will never part company with the old logo (My dock with BE version 12.5.2 below)

[Jon]

Your comments are noted. A few points: The publisher could be shorter (it's useless except for formatting), but address, I think not. It is used all the time and I don't think users want to have to expand it to see where the author is located. As for standalone windows, you can have as many open as you want, that's one of the major feature requests that was able to be fulfilled with the new design. And your memory is not correct -- you could never have the editing pane open in both the library window and the standalone reference window, it was always one or the other. But now you can have as many standalone editing windows as you want. Finally, the DOI is set=and-forget. I see no reason it should be visible on the main tab (just like the PMID, Call #, ISBN, etc.).

Jon
Sonny Software

[Nhaps]

1. I have used address for just city and state, that's why. If people use it for more information then that's fine, issue closed. But yes, I would insist on shortening the space for publisher. By the way, the space for authors and editors is too big. Let me know your thoughts.

2. Thanks for refreshing my memory. I think the current design of multiple standalone windows is much better than the lack thereof in the last version. But in case you contemplate the possibility of having both active, Library window and standalone windows, I would definitely use them. For the future, not now.

3. The DOI has been required now by the second edition of my SBLHS manual of style. It's true that it's set and forget but there is one caveat. DOI is still being standardized across the board by many entities and I have caught several, several DOI's that were actually wrong and needed update. Some of them even pointed to a completeley different work than the one I expected. This is not a major request though.

[Jon]

1. In the sciences multiple authors and the corresponding author's address are important. Bookends caters to many different academic fields (science is probably the field of the bulk of our users).

3. Yes, DOI's are important. But you do not need to see them in the main tab. They're just noise, meaning that the "value" is of no interest. If it's incorrect it's incorrect, and you can fix it in its current location.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Nhaps]

I understand "1." better now, and agree with "3." I would have another suggestion, to shorten U1 to half its size, which I use for key citation. I don't know how others are using U1, but I would suppose it's short content.

[Jon]

Shortening a field is of no benefit unless it's paired with another short field. I really don't think nickel-and-diming the UI is of much value at this point, we have reached the point of diminishing returns.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Nhaps]

I agree. What's at the back of my mind however is that U1-U2, and U3-U4 were in pairs not long ago. Half-space for each.