Codec created some Harvard style CSLs. Anyone who wants to test them can follow these steps:

1) Go to the ticket.

2) Click on one of the two attachments, harvard1-raw.csl or harvard2-raw.csl. Scroll to the bottom of the attachment page and click "Original Format" under "Download in other formats".

3) Open the downloaded CSL file in a text editor (e.g. drag into Notepad or TextEdit) and copy the contents to the clipboard.

4) In a Zotero-enabled Firefox, load chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul. Open the Zotero pane and select some items. Paste the CSL contents into the large text area, and you should see a preview of the items in the Harvard style.

Oops - yes a snafu in production - fixed now.

I deduced the et-al rule on Leeds, I think Anglia is set differently to 4 as you say.

Thanks for the feedback.

Is there not one definitive reference for Harvard? Googling suggests perhaps not, but it would be nice if we could clarify ideally one "Harvard" style.

Also, on this process ...

First, manually downloading and copying-and-pasting files is too much hassle for my busy life. It would be easier if you loaded styles as individual files (rather than embedded in a SQL file) in a repository I have both read and write access to, so that I can more easily help improve the style(s), and then just link to there. Having to deal with patches is a PITA.

Obviously the xbib repo has these characteristics, and I've been happy to give people write access to it (though I wonder if a more distributed SCM like mercurial is more appropriate for style development).

Second, I've asked a twice recently for people to state somewhere what styles they're working on, but I've not heard anything from anyone but codec. Am I really to assume the Zotero team isn't working on any styles?

For the record, I have started on Bluebook, and have made incremental progress.

hehe
I just validated them, it found two errors.
One was the sort-algorithm wasn't a legal thing
The second was the class="author-date" which it seemed to object to.
I used the emacs nxml mode to verify

What did you find?

Thanks Jon for the feedback - just uploaded a new version which I think fixes these problems (and hopefully doesn't introduce any new ones!) and IS validated. :-)

Fixed - thanks again!

when can it be rolled out for us techno-peasants that don't like / know how to use SQiite to manually import it?

As soon as you guys say it's ready.

Bruce: We know the process is lacking. I'll try to rig up something this weekend to help. More later.

Now you mention it - yes it does give word a problem.
I think I've found the problem and fixed it.

I wrote a small dos .bat script to install the new formats automatically, but its rather fragile due to the firefox profile directory being a little elusive sometimes. It only worked too if you had the default location for the database.

What csl line did you use?

Great - I'll fix the page number thing.

Hi bdarcus, I'm not surprised CSL doesn't handle this for the reason you mention. I remember a comment you made ages ago about abbreviation (including things like ibid and op cit) being a legacy of the pre-electronic era. Personally I'd be glad to see it go (along with endnotes - don't keep making me flip to the end of something to see what you're referencing).
Also, to make things harder the alternative (Leeds) Harvard that Codec has set up doesn't seem to shorten page numbers in this way but does use pp.
WALKER, J R. 1998. Citing serials: online serial publications and citation systems. Serials-Librarian, 33 (3/4), pp.343-356.

Thanks - think I've now fixed those too.

I have done the testing and it works. I have however comments on the way the citation is organised.
In-text citation - author and date should be separated with comma.
Reference list - for journals - journal volume and issue number should be structured differently according to the two sources I have have, i.e. 'Vol. 1, No. 3' and not 1(3).

I think, the only viable solution to the problem of not having one Harvard standard is through the new feature in zotero that would allow us to edit easily the citation formats to make it match the requirements of the institution we are affiliated with.
I reckon you could roll out this citation the way it is since there will be no agreement. I should be still usefull until we get the new feature in zotero.
cheers. thanks for the efforts. much appreciated.

HI Codec, still getting the space between the first bracket and the date when I use supress author.

I've done a custom format for an open university course I'm on (A251) although most of mine are S courses. This course has its own weird rules, but has some Harvard like syntax. Some of the rules are specific to this course, so I don't think its worth releasing it as there is a substantial amount of hackery required to get it to work (abusing certain fields to get citations working correctly).

Hmm ... "hackery"? Does this suggest you might have some suggestions for schema tweaks?

On releasing styles: I've mentioned to Dan in a private email that where I want to get (sooner rather than later) is you create a style for some course or journal, post it at some stable location, and your colleagues can simply load/subscribe to that style by clicking or pasting the style URI into Zotero (or any other application that supports CSL). A user should never -- ever -- have to manually distribute or load a CSL style. Atom will make this process smoother, allowing browsing of collections of styles and such, automatic updating, etc..

Right now we're in a strange initial stage where styles (in Zotero) are all or nothing: either everyone gets access to them, or nobody does. But I'd encourage you to make them available, even if they don't get loaded in Zotero by default. "Available" means retrievable over HTTP either by the value of the cs:id element, or the cs:link.

And yes, a full GUI will be difficult; the power of the markup gets a little hard to represent in a GUI. But, one can think about something like BibTeX's makebst: a wizard that allows you to create an almost-perfect finished style based on a series of questions.

Leeds Met also have a Harvard style:

http://skillsforlearning.leedsmet.ac.uk/harvard_2004.pdf

This a a comprehensive guide to Harvard that we have to use.

Glade to see there is a Harvard style know available. Will test it out over the next few days. On my Masters course the referencing is extremely strictly assessed to this standard.

Thanks,

Rich

Hi Codec, yes I'm using OO, so that is probably where the problem is. Won't be able to test the new CSL till tomorrow evening.

Thanks - thats useful - might have a go at it. However its missing a few details - like when et. al. kicks in, what page numbers should look like in citations and a few other bits.

I've added that last one in as variant 3. Maybe we should take a vote :-)

Hmm - what version are you referring to? I used http://library.curtin.edu.au/referencing/harvard.pdf as the basis.

e.g.,
Madden, R & Hogan, T 1997, The definition of disability in Australia: moving towards national consistency, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra.

Wharton, N 1996, ‘Health and safety in outdoor activity centres’, Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Leadership, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 8-9.

HI Codec, loaded up the new harvard1 and the openoffice extra space suppress author glitch seems to be gone (still there for the APSA style). Great work. Unless anybody else has any caveats, should we release this one, so long as people know that its based on the East Anglia standard? Jon.

Job well done codec,
I look forward to 1.0.2 to be able to install them.

hello babrevian,
as there is no news on when the official zotero 1.0.2. release will be out i did the following and it has worked so far fine with me.
1. download and install the beta version of 1.0.2 from here http://dev.zotero.org/svn_and_trac_access (see bottom of page 'Development XPI'; there is a link to the ff extension file; download and open with ff to install)
2. chose the style you want to install from the page codec mentiones http://www.zotero.org/styles - next to each one of them there is an install).
3. that should do it. perhaps there will be some issue since this is beta but better beta than nothing :)

Codec, I will be now testing the harvard3 as i write my assignment and will give more feedback later on.

Thanks zinaf. I have downloaded it and I will take a look. It appears to work. Will let you know when I have some time.