Discussion Page for the BibtexPlugin

This plugin is predominantly the work of TWiki:Main/MichaelDaum. I merely ported it to the Dakar API, and added in the BIBTEXREF functionality. I've been using it now for about six months, and felt it was time for a more formal release. Enjoy!

-- ScottHoge - 19 May 2006

Thanks MichaelDaum and ScottHoge for contributing this Plugin!

-- PeterThoeny - 20 May 2006

I just tried this from SVN TWiki4 branch - a few suggestions:

• Move executable files (i.e. render.sh) from pub/TWiki/BibtexPlugin/render.sh to /tools/render.sh - less accessible for browsing (perhaps install a less generic name at the same time, i.e. render_bibtex.sh or similar)
• The %CITE% tag didn't kick in for me, but was left unrendered?
• Doc talks about updating paths in plugin .pm file, not render.sh
• Add a few fully pre-rendered examples for "plugin shoppers" to watch, i.e.:

You type

%BIBTEX{select="author:'Moresi'"}%

Indeed a very useful plugin for especially scientific work and other "advanced writing" - thanks for contributing!

-- SteffenPoulsen - 20 May 2006

To edit .bib files in TWiki, and bypass the download/edit/attach cycle, one can use the Plugins.CacheContentPlugin AttachContentPlugin.

-- ScottHoge - 13 Jul 2006

Very useful, but there are a couple of installation gotchas: The link to Bibtex2html under
Synopis is correct, but the one under
Plugin Installation Instructions (which, of course, is the one I looked at while installing) is to the wrong Bibtex2html. There is something wrong with the permissions in the zipfile. I didn't figure out what, but I got exec errors until I did chmod -R 775 twiki

-- ShaughanLavine - 15 Aug 2006

new release (v1.4) has a syntax change. In attributes, bibstyle replaces style to correct a conflict with NatSkin. See TWiki:Support.BibtexPluginSearchAndChangeStyle for details. Also, this release addresses Steffen's comment's above (except I overlooked bibtex_render.sh, which is a good one. Next time.).

-- ScottHoge - 08 Sep 2006

I fixed three broken references from TWiki:BibliographyPlugin to TWiki:Plugins.BibliographyPlugin. Feel free to take this into he next release.

Also, how about adding a Copyright table row and a Benchmark table row (based on NewPluginTemplate) to the Plugin Info table? See PluginBenchmarks for details on how to measure the relative performance.

-- PeterThoeny - 10 Sep 2006

We ran into a bug while setting up this plugin. It would seem it requires a space after the script name in the variable $TWiki::cfg{Plugins}{BibtexPlugin}{render}. This is unlike all of the other twiki variables. Here is a patch that resolves the issue:

• BibtexPlugin.pm_patch

-- RickMach - 30 Nov 2006

Rick, Thanks for the feedback. SVN has been patched and a new release uploaded.

-- ScottHoge - 02 Dec 2006

I tested this with TWiki 4.2b4 and tried to copy the example %BIBTEX{error="on" form="on" total="on"}% as seen on the demo page; however, it seems that the needed JavaScript function javascript:toggleElement(x) is missing?

-- MarkusUeberall - 18 Jan 2008

It appears that this was 'missing' in earlier releases as well. Apparently, I never tested the hide function in the script template. Not sure when I'll be able to respond to this. In the meantime, you can remove the 'hide' line from the BibtexSearchTemplate.txt file---It won't affect the plugin functionality.

-- ScottHoge - 19 Jan 2008

Hi Michael/Scott,

I discovered two bugs regarding the BibtexPlugin (which otherwise is just great!):

• Citations using %CITE{BahrSimpson02}% don't display properly
  • However, %BIBTEXREF{ bibstyle="alpha" }% does display cited references
  • TWiki:Plugins.BibliographyPlugin not installed
  • Everything else on TWiki.BibtexPlugin works just fine but the citation brackets are empty [] in the example shown above
  • Vanilla installation: TWiki version TWiki-4.2.0, Tue, 22 Jan 2008, build 16278, Plugin API version 1.2
• BibtexPlugin seems to prevent Main web renaming
  • Using the Rename/move/delete web link on Main.WebPreferences leads to an error (see below, rename page won't show up)
  • Disabling the plugin using configure solves the problem, reenabling the plugin lets the error reoccur
  • Vanilla installation: TWiki version TWiki-4.2.0, Tue, 22 Jan 2008, build 16278, Plugin API version 1.2
  • Same error occurs on: TWiki version TWiki-4.1.2, Sat, 03 Mar 2007, build 13046, Plugin API version 1.11 (other unmatched regex but same function/line)
  • Error message: error_rename_main_web.txt

-- OliverBock - 27 Jun 2008

Oliver, any chance you are running a cgi accelerator? I haven't been able to recreate these errors. However, a look at the code reveals many globals, which could be the reason for the second error you report if you are running speedycgi or something similar.

-- ScottHoge - 07 Jul 2008

Hi Michael and Scott!

Thanks for your great work on this plugin!
Since we are using it a lot, we would have two enhancement requests and found a bug:

• Styles in bibtex table. Typing something like %BIBTEXREF{bibstyle="apalike"}% results in an html output like this:

  <div class="bibtex"><table><tr valign="top">
     <td align="right">[<a name="...">...</a>]</td>
     <td>...</td>
  </tr></table></div>
  

  To modify the look, it would be nice to have two more styles:

...
   <div class="bibkey">
      <td align="right">[<a name="...">...</a>]</td>
   </div>
   <div class="bibreference">
      <td>...</td>
   </div>
...

...
   <td class="bibkey">[<a name="...">...</a>]</td>
   <td class="bibreference">...</td>
...

• Default bibstyle. It would be nice to have something like a Set DEFAULTBIBSTYLE preference setting to change the default bibstyle for all topics.
• Style-bug: There seems to be something wrong with the placement of style divisions for bibabstract and bibkeywords when using non-default bibstyles. For example:
  %BIBTEX{abstracts="on" bibstyle="apalike"}%: in the output html the divisions <div class="bibabstract"> are not closed by </div>. This similarly applies to bibkeywords divisions.
  For %BIBTEX{abstracts="on"}% everything seems to be fine.

Greetz!

-- MichaelFlowers - 10 Aug 2008

Ciao Scott,

I found that whenever BibliographyPlugin and BibtexPlugin are installed together, there is problem in rendering commands of "BIBCITE", "BIBTEXREF", etc (though "BIBTEX" is still not affected). Whenever I removed all files from BibliographyPlugin, everything become working again.

Please see if the incompatible problems can be solved or add the note of inconsistency into the BibtexPlugin topi.

Thanks,

-- Xiaolong Wang - 2013-09-21

I have not used either plugin, and I have not looked at the code. Depending on how they are implemented you might be able to resolve the issue with the $TWiki::cfg{PluginsOrder} setting in configure or twiki/lib/LocalSite.cfg. See if executing one before the other fixes the issue.

-- Peter Thoeny - 2013-09-26