Style Generator

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  • I have just begun to use the style generator (http://www.somwhere.org/csl/) since I couldn't find a citation/bibliography style that approximates that in the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference template (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2009/lpsc2009.templates.html). I am experiencing difficulties with several unanswered queries in this forum:
    (1) What is the option in the style generator to specify the order within an author's name? E..g, (first, last) versus (last, first)
    (2) How can the carriage return between consecutive bibliographic entries be replaced with a space?

    I would like to resolve this at least a few days before the 08 Jan 2009 abstract submission deadline. Alternatively, if some one is aware of a *.csl file for LPSC abstracts, please let me know.
    Suniti (Suniti Karunatillake)
  • I am also unable to add more than two exceptions to the bibliography style. However, I need to add exceptions for several source types: book, chapter, thesis, paper conference, entry encyclopedia, manuscript, etc. Is there an option somewhere that allows three or more exception entries?
    Thanks.

    Suniti
  • I tried this out for the American Antiquity style. It is a very useful site with a lot of potential. Thanks for working on this.

    I guess I don't quite understand the formatting. I wanted a hanging indent with a line feed between the last author and the date. But the date ended up on the same line as the author. As with others above, I need more fields in the style and more exceptions than just two.

    Also, it sure would be nice to read in a style and then edit it--though I understand that this would add another layer of complexity to the tool.
  • Nice work! However, I tried to create a Journal of Food Science style and found some problems.

    The et al. option does not seem to work no matter what numbers I set. In addition, could you please add options that what words would be "et al."? For example, JFS uses "and others", but not et al.

    I also still haven't figured out how to put the first name initial after last name in bibliography. I want Smith J rather than J Smith.

    Like other comments already said, I would like to have instant-result and also settings for books and web pages.

    Really good start though. Thank you very much.
  • First, I would like to thank the author of the style generator for his valuable contribution.

    I have however a small request which seems to be similar to other users. I need to be able to sort the author first and last names as Doe J rather than J Doe.
    Since I am here, is it possible to include dots or commas as well, such J. Doe, Doe J., J., Doe or Doe, J.

    Best Regards, Ben
  • I would like to point lemaxx to this thread: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/5961/

    It seems that the generator does not always generate styles that validate to the CSL schema.
  • Hi everyone,

    I guess it is not easy to implement, but it would be a tremendous help if there was a GUI to change - not create - existing styles. Often, I only have to change a few things, and it would save me a lot of time if there was a straight forward "style changer" - and my colleagues could finally be convinced to use Zotero, a lacking GUI to change styles is their main (and often single) reason not to use Zotero...

    And everyone out there writing in political or communication sciences - please upload your styles to the repository! ;-)

    dnh
  • I guess it is not easy to implement, but it would be a tremendous help if there was a GUI to change - not create - existing styles. Often, I only have to change a few things, and it would save me a lot of time if there was a straight forward "style changer" - and my colleagues could finally be convinced to use Zotero, a lacking GUI to change styles is their main (and often single) reason not to use Zotero...
    I've been saying forever that what we need is an online style creation wizard. This would effectively do what you want, which is to select from some default options, and then specify what's different about your style. Your style would then be instantly available to you and everyone else for activation. A skeleton of a demo is here.

    Alas, while I can help with this, I cannot do it alone.
  • Hello,
    I don't know if that can help, but Bibus has got a very good style generator (except I can't use Bibus because I need a Chicago style for citation). Of course I'm not sure how Zotero and Bibus could work together...
  • Hey there,
    I have a question: i was searching for a style with an "alphabet-number system", i mean numbers in the text like the vancouver system, but classified by alphabetical name of authors in the bibliography.

    Like this:
    "This could be written by Carol (3) in adam's book (1).
    Bibliography
    1. Adam
    2.Bottom
    3.Carol"

    Alas, it seems to me that every style with numbers in the text, results in a bibliography classified by order of appearance...
    Like this:
    "This could be written by Carol (1) in adam's book (2).
    Bibliography
    1. Carol
    2.Adam
    3.Bottom"

    Is it possible to do something like my first example in zotero? Is it possible with your generator?

    Thanx for your help...
    Phil
  • hey - yes, it's possible.
    The style generator is all but defunct.
    Just take a style you like and add
    <sort>
    <key variable="author"/>
    <key variable="issued"/>
    </sort>
    in the bibliography section, right before layout.
  • It should be possible to do this, by setting the bibliography to sort by author names and titles. It might look a little odd in the text, though -- when the reader encounters the first citation, say, "Water is wet. [213]", he might not grasp at first that [213] is a cite, or might get the impression that the document is a fragment from a larger work.
  • Thanks adamsmith, i will try eventhough i don't know a lot about csl.
    I will put the line you told me before <layout>
    but question 1. do i erase/replace this:
    <sort>
    <key variable="citation-number"/>
    </sort>
    or do i let it stay in the code and add the lines you told me?

    question 2, where are the styles (the files .txt or .csl?) in my computer?
  • replace it.
    http://www.zotero.org/support/csl_simple_edits
    has great and easy to follow instructions for small edit such as this one.
  • I've replaced the lines in the vancouver style but it doesn't work: it's still classified by order of appearance...
    Any solution?
  • sorry, I didn't look at the style before answering your last question - you've changed the citation section, not the bibliography section.
    put the "citation number" thing back in where it was and then add the lines I gave you further down in the bibliography section
    so that you have

    <bibliography>
    <option name="et-al-min" value="7"/>
    <option name="et-al-use-first" value="6"/>
    <option name="second-field-align" value="true"/>
    <sort>
    <key variable="author"/>
    <key variable="issued"/>
    </sort>
    <layout>

    I tried this out and put the style up for you, you can go here:
    http://gist.github.com/186118
    and download it using the Raw link at the top right.
  • Ok, just a last thing: i made it work accidentally without this advice: what i've done was:
    <citation>
    <option name="collapse" value="citation-number"/>

    -[i've erased the "citation number" thing but didn't replace it!]

    <layout prefix="(" suffix=")" delimiter="; ">
    <text variable="citation-number"/>
    </layout>
    </citation>
    -
    <bibliography>
    <option name="et-al-min" value="7"/>
    <option name="et-al-use-first" value="6"/>
    <option name="second-field-align" value="true"/>

    -[then i've put the lines you told me]
    <sort>
    <key variable="author"/>
    <key variable="issued"/>
    </sort>
    -
    <layout> etc.

    So i did what you told in the last message except that i didn't put back the "citation number thing", it seems to work. I hope it won't be a problem!!
    I thank you very much!
  • what the citation number thing does is to order the citations in multiple citations in the text. With what you get you'll get them in the order you put them (e.g. 2,3,1 or 3,1,2). With the line this will be (1-3).
    But the style will work either way.
  • Can you add more exception to your program? I need more then 2 exceptions. Thank you.

    More details about my problem at:
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/10500/help-making-additions-to-american-chemical-society-style/#Item_1
  • I would council strongly against using the style generator at this time - it is afaik not maintained and produces buggy csl code that's harder to troubleshoot than it would be to write new one.
  • edited March 7, 2010
    Can anyone say if this: http://bitbucket.org/csledit/csl-wysiwyg-editor/ is live somewhere? Since it has Mendeley backing it and Bruce at least somewhat involved, I imagine that it could be good. I'd like to try it out, and it'd be good to encourage people to switch from the 10-times-deprecated style generator that spawned this thread.
  • http://csleditor.quist.de/

    I don't think it's meant for public consumption yet, though.
  • it also doesn't work yet - right now this is mainly a front-end.
  • Gee, http://csleditor.quist.de looks very good now. I haven't checked the CSL it produces in detail but the interface is just fabulous — about the best way to implement something as complex as this.
  • yeah - nice work on the groups feature, I like that.

    I don't think Bruce is going to be happy that this, by default, produces entirely macro-free styles which will be a mess to fix by hand, though. Personally for me that would depend on how powerful this ends up being: If touching the code would be a very, very rare need, I don't care. I we're going to be stuck fixing little things - like conditionals - in styles with hemorrhaging bibliography, I'm going to be a lot less happy.
  • edited July 30, 2010
    It's more than just frontend code at this point, but not totally ready for testing. Anyone interested in volunteering to test it?
  • Well, he added my requested "default" tab, so that offers room to deal with a macro oriented approach.
  • Bruce: Your above message is quite old by now, and I am not sure what is meant by "testing" but if a usable csl style editor exists that can be tested by non programmers, I would be very happy to do this. From checking the relevant webpages
  • "Testing" is probably the wrong word (it's not really complete enough). It was stalled in alpha for awhile; work is starting up again, and current example is at:

    http://csleditor.quist.de/csleditor/show/1/example-citation-style

    It is showing improvement, but there's a fair bit of work to do in my view.
  • thanks, I'll give it a try as soon as I find time and use for it!
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