Custom formats: Convert Endnote to Bookends files or a format file finder for Bookends

[Reinhard]

Many journals provide Endnote-format files, but no Bookends files. Wouldn't it be nice to have an import feature for ens-files in Bookends? Yet, it might be no easy task!
I might have already asked this question...

[Jon]

The EN style files are proprietary, and there are instances where there are no equivalents between them and Bookends formats. Note that format creation is arguably quite a bit easier in Bookends than EndNote, and that in the vast majority of cases we have a format that fits your needs (even if it's for a different journal), or might require minor tweaking.

I'll take this opportunity to remind our users that Bookends can create a catalog for you that shows examples of all the formats you have (Biblio -> Create Format Catalog), which can help quite a bit in finding the format you want.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Reinhard]

Thanks Jon, "create format catalog" is a nice feature. Didn't know it.

Anyway...
Would it be possible to program a "format creator", where you have two input fields, one for the citation and one for the reference.
In the citation field you insert a citation from a specific journal like "(Stindl, 2004, 2014; Holohan et al., 2015)" and in the reference field you insert the corresponding references.
Once you press the confirm-button, Bookends creates a new format file matching the formats entered in the two fields.
Of course, one has to use a multiple citation field and a reference with at least 6 authors or so.
...and the result would not be perfect...

Alternatively, Bookends could try to find the corresponding reference format by searching the available files.

Just an idea

[Jon]

Neither of those ideas is feasible.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Reinhard]

You say it is not feasible...

I just found this: http://editor.citationstyles.org/searchByExample/

Isn't it similar to the idea I suggested above?

[Jon]

I didn't spend a lot of time, but I entering two different formatted bibliography entries, neither of which was correctly identified. Furthermore, trying to find examples that are similar is a far cry from generating a Bookends format that would faithfully mimic the example supplied. There would be many inaccuracies and incomplete specification that would require editing post facto. And how to deal with empty fields? It's pretty easy to create a format as it is, trying to have Bookends deduce what it should be from an example would probably waste more time than it saves.

There is no point in discussing this further, I'm signing off.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Reinhard]

This is a project, which has been discontinued.

"Maintainer needed! Development has stalled on these tools since the Mendeley & Columbia University project ended in 2012. The site is visited by over 3,000 people every month and there are plenty of user suggestions and github issues to work on. If you're interested, fork the source code, make your changes, and issue a pull request, I promise to review it.
Steve Ridout, August 2015"

However, it shows that a "Bookends format creator/finder" could work