total noob, editing a stupidly complex style
(It's not the existing code that is stupidly complex, it's the citation rules!)
My programming skills extend as far as CSS (though at least I'm talking hand-coded and standards-compliant). So this is a little over my head. Nevertheless, I'm forging ahead with adapting the Bluebook Law Review style to make it handle more types of citations correctly. The dev version right now is great (Endnote and Refworks, with which I've worked before, don't _have_ Bluebook styles.) But I need to cite legal cases, journal articles, books, book chapters, magazines, dissertations, blog posts, and webpages, and the dev style doesn't quite manage all those.
Biggest question: is there a good reason _not_ to have an if/else-if/else structure in the layout for a citation or bibliography?
Bluebook style is really illogical, so I've graphed out the structures of the different types of citations and I can't see how they can all be called with the same set of instructions, even using macros.
Smaller question: what is up with ibid/subsequent? I can't get them to output the author name at all.
My programming skills extend as far as CSS (though at least I'm talking hand-coded and standards-compliant). So this is a little over my head. Nevertheless, I'm forging ahead with adapting the Bluebook Law Review style to make it handle more types of citations correctly. The dev version right now is great (Endnote and Refworks, with which I've worked before, don't _have_ Bluebook styles.) But I need to cite legal cases, journal articles, books, book chapters, magazines, dissertations, blog posts, and webpages, and the dev style doesn't quite manage all those.
Biggest question: is there a good reason _not_ to have an if/else-if/else structure in the layout for a citation or bibliography?
Bluebook style is really illogical, so I've graphed out the structures of the different types of citations and I can't see how they can all be called with the same set of instructions, even using macros.
Smaller question: what is up with ibid/subsequent? I can't get them to output the author name at all.
More generally, I think it's easier to maintain styles if they're designed to rely on macros.
Also, it's my assertion that one should rely on "types" only as a last resort. Even if you include conditionals within the macros? I don't know; kind of a vague question ;-)
@bdarcus It may not be possible to avoid groups of macros in layouts entirely--it does not work for Chicago note styles.
@erazlogo - I have been looking at Chicago Full Note w/bib - it makes my head explode! :) But I'll try again - I can see why ifs in the citation format would be bad, and it's not like I have to maintain separate citation and bibliography layouts like the Chicago.