I haven't seen a style like that (and I don't know whether CSL is up to it), but you can preview all existing styles at http://www.zotero.org/styles. Uncheck 'show dependent styles' to weed out most duplicates.

So what is the algorithm there? Four letters, filled up by either the only author's name or the first letters of multiple names? What to do with five authors? Also, how do you disambiguate centuries in a two-digit year?

In short, can you provide more examples and preferably a complete descriptive style guide?

I'm waiting for bdarcus to come along. He knows whether this is at all possible in CSL. I am not aware of any options that let you pick out first letters in this fashion.

thanks four your reply.

so the point is that zotero (and CSL) can't split up the letters of the name or it can't do this in dependence of the number of authors?

another idea: do you think it would be possible if I generate the key manually, insert it in an unused field (let's say the "extra"-field which is available for all types of citations) and use this field as reference in footnotes?

not the best way but maybe it could work out. i really don't want to miss zotero when writing my bachelor thesis which has to use this citation style :-|

You can do that, but it's only a short-term stop-gap, since this wouldn't be a standard usage of CSL; the style would effectively be specific to you. Zotero needs to add support for key storage and/or generation.

In many german universities you have to citate in this way.

e.g. I already had to do 2 thesis in this way. And I am now looking for a easy way with zotero.

Still no solution?

cya,
duffy6

@ bugmenot

Maybe you could add details of your solution here for others to use:
http://www.zotero.org/support/kb/ams_alphabetic

The login for the wiki is separate from the forums:
http://www.zotero.org/support/?do=register

Oh, and do you know what that type of citation is called? Any official style guides?
I've just called it the "authorship trigraph" style, based on the Wikipedia page, but I can't find it in any official guides, except one LaTeX manual for the American Mathematical Society.

As described above I change an existing style to be able to use this special author style with Zotero. But unfortunately, I got errors trying to use this new style with the Zotero Processor Plugin for Word.

Visual Basic Error
runtime error '9':
Index out of bounds

Has somebody worked it out to use this style with Word?

After some trying I found my error. I changed the sorting key to the variable note (contains my reference code). Leaving the sorting key unchanged in the used style removed this error.

Now, I have all I want to have :-). My own reference code in bibliography and text.

I agree, this would be a huge help. Hopefully an upcoming release will cover as noted on the other thread.

This isn't a requirement at my university, but my adviser's preference. I will have to try and convince her another form is appropriate.

She prefers the AMS style this forum refers to. She likes it better than the typical numbering because it's easier to put the chapter's together in the end, but doesn't take the space using the full name. It really makes sense. It's just that zotero doesn't have it as an option right now.

She is really reasonable so I anticipate switching to something else won't be a big issue (particularly when I tell her it's for ease of managing citations, which is her main reason for using AMS).

Well, seems like German universities really like this style ... I can add TU Dortmund as one not mentioned yet, even though we use it a little specified with 3 characters for author and then the year (AAAYY) ... With many details specified on about 6 DINA4 pages.

Would be really cool if someone like this could be added to Zotero, I really prefer this program compared to every other I know.

Not in the near future, no. Styles that use these identifiers vary in the fragments they use an in their way of handling clashes, so it will take some work to specify a syntax for defining the format of the terms in a way that is general.

well, possible yes - but it would need to be done in a way that can accommodate more than just your style, but also styles like the Amer. Math. Society etc. and then it gets tricky.

The latest release of citeproc-js (1.0.160) supports authorship trigraphs, accessible via the citation-label variable in CSL 1.0. The format of the trigraph string is configurable, and the experimental multilingual branch now contains code that allows configuration, via a hidden preference. If that code or something like it is adopted by Zotero after the new processor version comes on stream, it will become possible to implement these styles without resorting to workarounds.

With the next release of Zotero (2.1.7), the CSL 1.0 variable citation-label will produce an authorship trigraph of a fixed form. It will probably not be configurable, but it will at least allow the composition of styles of this type.

I don't know when 2.1.7 will come down the pike. Concerning a reference implementation, when the new processor version becomes available, adding this to a style will render an authorship trigraph at that location:<text variable="citation-label"/>There's not much more to it.

@tumsi:

I don't know that you still browse this forum or not. I have tried your method and find that everything works well except the sort function: reference list is sorted according to the sequence of inserting citation instead of what I defined in note.

I have changed my csl-file (based on ieee style) according your description. Actually there is one place which should be also changed:
(under </sort>)
-------------
<layout prefix="[" suffix="]" delimiter="], [">
<text variable="note"/>
</layout>
-------------

Did I miss something wich related to sort? Thanks for your help if you can find this feedback!

@fbennett and @bdarcus:

I had tried the <text variable="citation-label"/> in 2.1.8. It works but also has the sort problem. Another reason that I can't use it is that it is not configurable because our requirements are a little bit different with what you discussed in
https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/issues/41

The two differences are: (based on your examples)

citation info: Bernard Smith & Gilbert Hichinpost, 1973
trigraph: SH73 (instead of SmH73)

citation info: Silvan Gobsmack, Hilary Nimblefoot, Adrian Buchwalt, Etienne Fogbottom, 2004
trigraph: GNB+04 (instead of GNB04)

Is it possible to offer a varied version for this? Or can you give me some clues about the sort problem?

Much thanks!

this seems pretty clear to me?
http://citationstyles.org/downloads/specification.html#sorting

Hi everyone.

Could somebody please upload (or email to me) a style edited in the fasion described here? Preferably the IEEE-Style!

Thanks a lot!

Is there a way to change the DIN1505-2 -style, so that it displays the authorship trigraphs, too?
I don't know how to program at all, so it would be very very helpful to me if someone could upload or email me this style with trigraphs or tells me exactly what to do to change it myself.
your help is greatly appreciated, since I have to manage this until the end of September and I already start to panic.. :-/ Thank you!

Thanks for your answer, fbennett!

The Trigraphs should be formatted as this: [Smi99]
Multiple Trigraphs should be cited as you mentioned: [Smi99; Smi00]

I think, the sorting of the bibliography is a bit more complicated than usual: At first, it has to be sorted by type of item (like Book or Website etc.), with an appropriate title above the different items. In these different sections the items have to be sorted by alphabetical order of the trigraphs.
If the described sorting of the bib is not possible, a simple alphabetical order by trigraph will be fine for the whole bib . In this case I'll use different bibliographies for different types manually.

In the bib, the trigraph should appear at first, with no hanging intend and with a blank character towards the authors.

Thank you very much for your help!

Hey fbennett, it works and looks how I wanted! Thank you very much! =) Theres only one bug or perhaps misunderstanding (if so, sorry!): The pages are not displayed in the cites. In the original DIN1505-2 it works correctly. It has to look like this:
[Smi99, S. 9] or [Smi00, S.5; Smi99, S.9]
or, when no page is given, it should look like it already does now, which is [Smi99]

Thanks again! A little more tuning would be cool:
In this version it is now
[Smi99, Seite6, Smi00, Seite7]
instead of the wanted
[Smi99, S.6; Smi00, S.7]

And, one more FINEtuning: The next point is not so important, but if you can fix this too, it would be the perfect style for many german technical universities!!: In the bibliography it is always
[...] Smith, A ; Smith, B ; [...]
instead of the wanted
[...] Smith, A; Smith, B; [...]