Sonny Software

Here's a proposal, tell me what you think: organize and display reading lists / syllabi from within Bookends itself.

Obviously, this can be done using a word processor in combination with Bookends. But, for organizing PDFs, personally I think it's valuable enough that it deserves to be in the program itself.

Possible features:
1. Ability to drag and drop references within a group to ORDER them (akin to establishing a play order or "track order" in iTunes) in a logical (e.g. not just alphabetical, or temporal) way
2. Add the ability to toggle the display of a short note (say, in italics) under each reference that can provide a short summary of the article
3. Ability to rate references (1 to 3 stars) in terms of their importance

Example display output:
[Group: DNA replication]
***1. Watson, J and Crick, F. A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid (1953). Nature, 171: 737-738
Proposed helical structure of DNA deduced from crystallography patterns
***2. Franklin, R and Gosling, R. Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate (1953). Nature, 171:740-741
Experimental evidence supporting a helical structure of DNA

To be clear, the point of this isn't just to be able to generate such a list in a word processor with the help of Bookends. The point would be that this could be displayed in a useful working format WITHIN bookends itself, to help organize my thinking about what are important papers in my field.

Feedback appreciated!
Tim

Where would you want to see this list displayed?

My thought is to use the same window display as is used currently, with three exceptions:

1. References can be dragged to reorder them however you see fit
2. You can toggle an option to "display notes"; when on, a notes field would become visible and would be displayed below each reference.

Eg, in the current display:
[ ] authors | date| title |
[ ] authors | date| title |
[ ] authors | date| title |

With a "display notes" feature turned on:
[ ] authors | date| title |
blurb one
[ ] authors | date| title |
blurb two
[ ] authors | date| title |
blurb three

3. References can be rated according to their importance. Ratings would show up in a separate column as one, two, or three stars (in my opinion, 5-stars requires too many subtle distinctions - keep it simple). Alternatively, an important paper could be colored, and a critical paper could be colored and bold.