Sonny Software

The recent post about capitalization in titles made me think of a problem I've always had with any reference manager to format author names in a "french style", that is according to the style indicated in "Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'imprimerie nationale", style that is commonly used in France. Since I will have soon to work on a french translation, I would be very pleased if Bookends could address this problem. (As far as I know, it would be the first reference manager to do it). It might be this kind of things that makes such programs much less used in Europe than they are in the United States or other english speaking countries.

Here is the format that is required: (omitting the commas)

Surname in small caps, space, opening parenthesis, complete name or initial(s) in plain style not allcaps nor smallcaps, closing parenthesis, comma and space and then the rest of the reference

Obviously the flexibility needed to make possible this format would allow also a lot of other possibilities. For example another format used in France is similar to the one just described but without parenthesis.
It seems to me that one of the main aspects of this flexibility would be to have Bookends distinguish Surname and Name in a way that allows to apply a different formatting to each one, and to control not only their order but also the punctuation before and after each one (name and surname).

Another suggestion: for small caps, instead of changing the size of the font, rather use the rft tag "\scaps" (cf. Rich Text Format (RTF) Specification, version 1.6).
The problem with the way Bookends now produces small caps (by changing the font size of the letters following the first) is that if I want to change the font size of the main text, the small caps are not changed proportionally.

What do you think of these suggestions?

I'll keep them in mind, but to be honest there is a limit to the complexity of specialized and/or exceptional formatting that Bookends will support. I am not eager to make a complex process more so.

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon wrote:I'll keep them in mind, but to be honest there is a limit to the complexity of specialized and/or exceptional formatting that Bookends will support. I am not eager to make a complex process more so.

Jon
Sonny Software

Hello, I understand well your reticence to increase the complexity of formatting options.
If I have a look at the complexity of the User Interface, I notice that for formatting author and editor names there are seventeen different options that the user can select in the Format manager: 8 in the "Formatting Options" tab, 8 in the "Name Punctuation Tab", plus the option of the style (Italic, Bold, etc.) that one can apply to the Author field (a) in the "Primary Order" and "Secondary Order" in the "Formatting Options".

The concept of metafield that you use for Issue, makes me wonder if a similar concept could not be applied to the different parts of an author or editor name.
For example n1 could refer to first name, n2 to middle name, n3 to surname, and n4 to suffix (like Jr., Sr. etc.).
So the way to control punctuation and format could use the same method used for formatting other fields in the Primary and Secondary Order.
It seems to me that doing so, the User Interface would be simplified rather than complexified.

So, the punctuation before and after those metafields (components of the complete name) would be managed in the same way as in Primary and Secondary Order.
For Capitalization: normal case could be indicated by n1, n2 etc.; ALL CAPS could be indicated by N1, N2, and so on; as entered could be indicated by asterisk or other symbol, for example n1*, n2* etc.
For Small Caps, the rtf character format could be used and locate together with Italic, Bold, etc, in the Style Menu.

I can imagine that this could mean many changes in the program coding, but it seems to me that the increase of flexibility would be done somehow simplifiying the user interface. (I think that maybe there would be no need for a specific tab for "Name Punctuation". Everything could fit in the "Formatting option tabs.
I don't describe here all the details of the UI I'm suggesting now.

And then what you call "specialized and/or exceptional formatting" in an English Speaking environment, might be the everyday formatting in other environments like France or other Latin countries. It might well be that those people would never buy Bookends, because it does not fit their everyday needs of formatting citations.

Considering the nature of this post, I'm not waiting for a quick response, but your first words ("I'll keep them in mind") encouraged me to share these thoughts.
Thanks for your attention.

Jules M.