newb questions

[K1]

I hate to ask multiple questions, but I need help! I read through the tutorial.

Can I create a bibliography window for a static group without replacing "Hits"?

Is it possible to create a bib window that uses a dash for repeated authors, and adds a letter to the date for two refs with the same author and date? And indents the second line of each ref ?

Also, is there a way to uncheck all references in the "All" list without doing it manually?

[Jon]

Can I create a bibliography window for a static group without replacing "Hits"?

No. Bibliographies are always generated from the Hits.

You can, of course, quickly create a static group of the current hits, if you want to preserve them. And you can convert a static group to hits simply by clicking on the "mark" checkbox of one of them with the Shift key held down.

Is it possible to create a bib window that uses a dash for repeated authors, and adds a letter to the date for two refs with the same author and date? And indents the second line of each ref with a space between them (it doesn't seem the bib window is ready for presentation)?

That's right, it's not ready for presentation as a finished bibliography in that sense -- you have to scan a document to get that.

Also, is there a way to uncheck all references in the "All" list without doing it manually?

Yes.

Hits -> Clear Hits List.

Jon
Sonny Software

[K1]

I see, I thought there would be an option to create a "dumb" version of a bibliography. It's my first time using any bib software, so I've been entering my references, and was planning on learning how to integrate it properly for my next project.

[Jon]

Of course you can, and that's what you do when you use the Bibliography Formatter to create a bib. It formats the references for publication, and does a very good job. But some things, like the addition of letters to years, are only done to "disambiguate" citations in a manuscript. So in the absence of such citations (e.g. Jones, 2005 referring to two different papers by Jones) Bookends woudn't know that any disambiguation is required. That's why it's only done when you scan a doc.

Jon
Sonny Software

P.S. To paraphrase: "The good deeds of the smallest man embiggens us all" (or something like that: The Simpsons).

[K1]

Now that I've noticed the tab for Bib & Doc options under the Format manager, I see that I can get the dashes for repeated authors. Other than getting letters for repeated dates, the only thing I'm missing is indents. The option for hanging indent doesn't seem to do anything. Am I missing something here?

[Jon]

No. The Bookends Bib Window itself isn't a word processing window and doesn't know about rulers. So the automatic hanging tabs only work when scanning a wp document.

Of course, you can force a tab at the beginning of each reference (?) in the format, and then simply adjust the ruler in the wp when you copy/paste out of the bibliography window (just play with the left margin in your word processor). That was actually how Bookends used to handle this before we made hanging indents automatic when scanning.

Jon
Sonny Software

[jeremydouglass]

you can convert a group to hits simply by clicking on the "mark" checkbox of one of them with the Shift key held down.

I'd recommend adding this to the manual in more places than just page 170. More importantly, I'd like to suggest a number of ways you could streamline / make it more intuitive. Converting a static group to hits is an important feature for my workflow, and the way I had to go about it was really counterintuitive to me and took me a long time to figure out.

Say I have a large bibliography, "Games Research", that I add to constantly, and I maintain several static (or dynamic, based on keyword) groups - "Multiplayer Games" "Art Games" "Games Conferences" etc. of several hundred entries each - some entries are in multiple lists etc. I add entries every day, and every couple of weeks I want to output a fully formatted MLA copy of each group list. That is my workflow - add things to groups, then print the groups.

Now, as it turns out, the proper procedure is:

Select group
Shift-click checkbox
Biblio > Bibliography Formatter

So, it is possible to do it. But I want to explain why this drove me crazy reading the manual and trying to figure it out for two days. I had two problems:

Problem 1. Can I create a properly formatted bibliography without marking all group entries as hits?

At first, it seemed like File > Print References would work, or Mouse Select > Edit > View Selected Formatted, or Mouse Select > Right Click > Copy Formatted - however after exploring each of these promising sounding options, none of properly handle adding dashes "- - -" for duplicate authors. Only Biblio > Bibliography Formatter will work - it isn't clear why it works slightly differently, it just does - and unlike the other dialogs it won't accept anything but Hits, not "selected" or a chosen group - it isn't clear why it won't, it just doesn't.

Problem 2. Okay, if I need to use Hits, how can I mark hundreds of nonsequentially numbered group list items as Hits without manually clicking on every single one every single time I need to print the group?

My first guess was Apple-A to select everything in the current list, then click the Hit Mark box to mark all. But that doesn't work.

Neither does dragging the selected entries onto "Hits" in the group list - you might expect that to mark them, but it doesn't. Neither does selecting the current list, then right clicking - there is no "Mark selected" option, either in the popup menu or as Refs > Mark > Mark Selected, although that is probably the most common thing a person wants to do with a selection - mark it. I also tried right-clicking on the group name, to see if "Mark group" was an option - it isn't - and tried dragging the group name onto this hits list, which doesn't work either. Adding to my confusion was the fact that adding marks is done in Refs > Mark while taking them away is Hits > Clear Hit List - and nowhere is there a way to specify anything but a sequential list of numbers, which isn't any help as none of my groups are sequential.

If figuring out how to hit-mark the whole group hadn't been such a problem, then I probably wouldn't have struggled so hard to find an easier way of generating a bibliography without hits, and vice-versa if I could have made a group bibliography without hits, I wouldn't have cared so much about marking large groups - but taken together, these two problems amplified each other. I kept staring at my 250 static entries in a group, thinking "click 250 checkboxes every time I want to print this list? No way - this can't be that hard! I'm just not getting it."

In conclusion, I now know what do to - use a hidden feature (not present in any menu item) - but I'd recommend adding one or several of the possible UI elements mentioned above that allow a user to take a group or a highlighted selection and easily turn everything into Hits. The current method (shift-click only) is quite other software I use, and it isn't listed in the manual where I would look (Hits, Refs, Groups Pane, etc.) This isn't really for my benefit (as I now know what to do) but it might make Bookends more friendly to future new users.

I hope this feedback is helpful to you - best wishes.[/quote]

[Jon]

In conclusion, I now know what do to - use a hidden feature (not present in any menu item) - but I'd recommend adding one or several of the possible UI elements mentioned above that allow a user to take a group or a highlighted selection and easily turn everything into Hits. The current method (shift-click only) is quite other software I use…

Actually, this method is also used in probably the most popular iApp, iTunes (there it's Command-click, in Bookends it's a Shift-click). But I agree, a contextual menu option (also present in the Action menu) would be useful.

Jon
Sonny Software

[jeremydouglass]

Interesting - I'll have to try that on iTunes....