Parent/Child metatype failing on child citations (SOLVED)

[monolateral]

[***See the last post in the thread for my workaround/solution.***]

Hello all,

I have been working on a parent/child relation between two BE references for about three days. Everything appears to be working except citations of the child. I have stared at this, read over the manual, and tested it to exhaustion, trying to avoid posting here. I bring nearly 50 years of experience in software and systems to this; I am accustomed to this sort of detailed configuration, and I am stumped. It may be something simple I have overlooked, but I am not seeing it.

Unfortunately what follows is detailed to summarize all I have done; I have written it somewhat in newspaper style to be easier to read.

I have a dictionary with signed entries. I could duplicate everything in independent BE references, but I would like to define a parent dictionary entry with child entry references for each author/entry I cite. In the long run I think that might be easier to maintain (although probably lost with the time lost in trying to make it work).

With Jon's generous help I have created a new link for Dictionary -> Dictionary Voice and set up the metatype relation.

I have a parent reference that has the common data for all cites of that dictionary, with no entry or entry author. That parent is of Type “Dictionary”.

I have a dictionary entry child reference that has three fields with values: entry author (a), dictionary entry (u1), and year (d). It is a linked child of the parent dictionary that should pull the parent data in using square brackets to complete the citation.

I am using author-date-uniqueid temporary citations, pulled into Scrivener via cmd-Y, eventually compiled to RTF and scanned in Nisus Writer Pro. They look like this:

{Evans, 2000, #122430} (parent)
{Evans, 2000, #235111} (child)

I added the “Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]” type to the Formats Manager, and I defined format strings that show properly formatted biblio and citation lines at the bottom of their respective windows.

The scan-created bibliography entry is formatted correctly, according to the metatype format string. I can modify the format string, and I can see that change propagate to the generated biblio entry, so I know that is working.

Citations of the child are not working. The scan created this as the child citation:

C.A. Evans, (2000).

[NB: I edited this to change the year in the child dictionary entry from 2001 to 2000; it occurred to me that the mismatch might be important in identifying the parent. The change did not alter the behaviour; it still is not using the “Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]” citation specification.]

The scan does not appear to be referencing the “Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]” metatype citation format string defined in the Formats Manager. There is special unconditional text “in voice” in the format string to test it (below), and that text was not in the generated citation.

Code: Select all

a~, “~u1~,” in voice ~[t~. (~l~: ~u~, ~d~).~]

Whatever format string the scan used to generate the citation did not reference ‘u1’, the title of the dictionary entry, which is defined. I have no idea where it might have taken a format string.

Repeating and summarizing, I think the problem is that the “Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]” citation string in the Formats Manager is never referenced, and I don’t know why. As mentioned above, the bibliography format string in that format is referenced and looks good.

I built a new two-reference database with only these two references and defined the parent/child link there, and it acts the same. I verified and reindexed the two databases.

Any idea what might be happening, or what additional testing I could do?

Thanks very much; I wish I could have avoided bothering the forum.

[monolateral]

I lightly edited my first post to change the child year from 2001 to 2000, indicating the change in square brackets. The change did not change the scan result.

The temporary citation was generated by cmd-Y from Nisus Writer Pro, selecting the child, then cmd-Y back to BE.

{Evans, 2000, #235111}

Repeating from my first post, I have a dictionary entry child reference that has three fields with values: entry author 'a' ("Evans, C. A."), dictionary entry 'u1' ("Messianism"), and year 'd' (2000). It is a linked child of the parent dictionary that should pull the parent data in using square brackets to complete the citation.

After a few hours distance from my first post, I think the problem is that my temporary citation of the child is apparently not sufficient to identify the child reference and its link to the parent.

Thinking from a database table perspective similar to a join, I would think the unique ID #235111 would identify the child, and the internal BE linked relation between parent and child would identify the parent from which to take the rest of the information.

As it is, I think the temporary citation may be identifying the BE child reference, but somehow the child is not recognized as a linked reference, and thus that it should use the “Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]” metavalue citation format string in the Formats Manager.

Again, I know I am missing something basic, but I am not seeing it.

[monolateral]

In the Formats Manager I have three Types:

Dictionary
Dictionary Entry
‘Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]’ (the metatype)

After repeated testing, introducing unique text into the various bibliography and citation format specs of the three Types in Formats Manager, I am seeing that citing the child, of Type ‘Dictionary Entry’, does not use the metatype format ‘Dictionary Voice [Dictionary]’ in Formats Manager, but the ‘Dictionary Entry’ format. I think it should use the metatype format, because the unique ID refers to a child in a linked reference relation.

This is the screen snap of the parent/child link:



The unique ID of the child is 235111; the temporary citation for it is {Evans, 2000, #235111}. Yet, the scan-generated final citation is this:

C.A. Evans, “Messianism,” in dictionary entry 2000). dictionary entry cite

The ‘dictionary entry’ text is from the Dictionary Entry citation format string in Formats Manager; had it been the metatype citation format, that text would have been ‘metatype’.

I can fill in any details required to further explain or document what I have, but I will try to keep this readable.

I must have misunderstood something basic, but I am too muddled in the thick of this mess to see it. For now I must back out and focus on other matters; perhaps when I come back to it I will see it more clearly. Thanks for any insights anyone can offer.

[monolateral]

==> Update a couple of hours later: I cannot duplicate the 'populate the child'; I don't know what I did to do that, and I cannot now reproduce it. This is both in my large database and a test database with three references, a dictionary reference and two child references for two dictionary entries.

I may have this working, but I do not know why.

Looking closely at the metatype examples, the step 6 image shows a Book Section: Book link, with the child in the top well, and the parent in the linked slot below. That is exactly backwards from what I was doing, based on what I had understood from the Link Inspector examples on 160–2, particularly this paragraph on 161:

It is important that you choose which reference is to be the parent carefully, because that will determine how metatypes are used when scanning and formatting citations and bibliographies. For example, you would almost always want a Book to be a parent and Book Chapters to be the children (Book : Book Section). (p. 161, underline mine)

However, looking at the step 6 image on 263, the references are reversed. I decided to try that, so I changed the dropdown relation to Dictionary Voice : Dictionary; something happened, and now BE has populated the child with the rest of the data from the parent.

I don’t understand what happened. It appears that somehow, in flipping the parent child relation in the Reference Link Manager, so the child is in the top well, BE populated the child???

To my astonishment, my citations are now correct. As it was before, the dictionary entry citation is drawing from the ‘Dictionary Entry’ Type in Formats Manager, *not* the metatype citation format, but it now works because somehow BE populated the child from the parent.

The metatype citation format string is not referenced. The metatype bibliography format is used to format the child biblio entry; that has been working.

The popup menus “Use metatypes” have been set all along to ‘all children’ in the Formats Manager for the bibliography and citation tabs.

I don’t understand this in the light of this step 6 text in the metatype description:

Use the Link Inspector to assign a Parent : Child relationship to each parent and child you are citing: If you don't do this, when Bookends encounters a child it will not know what parent to cite and will treat the reference simply as, say, a book chapter when it is formatted. (p. 262, underline mine)

Question: When does that child/parent citation happen? At scan generation time? At link definition time? I probably have this wrong, but the language about “what parent to cite” and “treat the reference … as a book chapter when it is formatted” seems to be what my citations are doing; they are not using the metatype citation format, but rather the ‘Dictionary Entry’ format in Formats Manager, because the child reference is of type ‘Dictionary Entry’.

Question: In the Formats Manager, are the citation formats of metatypes ever used? It appears that only biblio formats are used.

[monolateral]

Summarizing my work on this, I defined a metatype for two Types, Dictionary and Dictionary Entry. These are signed dictionary entries, so the entry references contain only the entry author, entry name, and the date of the dictionary; in citaions the entries should draw common information about the dictionary from the parent.

The problem was that the metatype citation formats were never referenced. The user-defined metatype bibliography formats are used, but metatype citation formats are not. After extensive testing, I finally understand why the metatype citation formats were not used.

Bookends (I am on the latest, 14.2.9) includes two Types, Book and Book Chapter, that can be related in a Book Section metatype; all these are pre-defined. I found rather by accident that user-created metatype citations are apparently not referenced unless a Book/Book Section metatype instance is created, associating book chapters with a book.

While testing the dictionary metatype, I knew I had a book with five different chapter references, so I decided to structure them in a Book/Book Section metatype. To my surprise, once I actually used the Book Section metatype, my Dictionary Voice metatype suddenly worked.

Through private mails Jon knows about this; he has patiently worked with me through this process. He has yet to confirm this behaviour, but I thought to post this for eventual reference by those trying to define custom metatypes.