How do I abbreviate months?

doyledh

I'm using Chicago MOS, full note, no ibid and want to use the abbreviations for months. I did this once before and somehow lost it. I need to edit the csl file, but the current one does not seem to have the same strings as the one I edited before.
Thanks.

adamsmith

look at MLA:
https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/modern-language-association.csl#L39
note that you _have_ to change the ID of any style you edit, Zotero updates styles daily and will overwrite your edits if your custom style's ID is the same as a style in the repository.

doyledh

I'm looking at it but am not sure what I'm supposed to do to make my CMOS full note csl work as I want it to. I understand that I will need to save it with a different filename so that the auto rewrite does not undo my custom edit. That explains why I "lost" the earlier edited csl file.
thanks

adamsmith

oh, I misread that. I thought you wanted your own abbreviations. If you just want month names abbreviated wherever they occur, add form="short" in every line month appears.
You can even do this with a search and replace

search - "month"
replace - "month" form="short"

Note that changing the filename is not enough. You need to change the id of the style:
http://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step#change_the_style_title_and_id

doyledh

What am I doing wrong? I open the csl file in notepad, but when I try edit > replace > "month" it does not find "month"

Also, I do not understand the part of the step by step that tells me: ... drag-and-drop the CSL style file onto an open Firefox browser window, and click the “Install” button (you can ignore the grey bar at the top of the window (“This XML style does not appear…”)).

Gracile

1/ You're not doing anything wrong: there's no "month" in CMoS, full not bib, no ibid.
You have to add date-part elements.
See:
The CSL specification and this example (MLA): lines 92-96.

2/ Are you using Zotero for Firefox or Zotero Standalone ?

doyledh

I'm using Zotero for Firefox
thanks

doyledh

Where in the csl file to I add the date-part lines? Does it matter?

Gracile

Edit: read adamsmith's post below.

The general idea is to replace
<date variable="issued">
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
by <date variable="issued">
<date-part name="month" form="short" suffix=" "/>
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>

adamsmith

no, I don't think that's quite right.
The issue is the localized date (
<date variable="issued" form="text"/>). I had forgotten about that, sorry for leading you on the wrong track. find

<locale xml:lang="en">
<terms>

in the style and insert

<date form="text">
<date-part name="month" suffix=" " form="short"/>
<date-part name="day" suffix=", "/>
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>

between those two lines so that they read

<locale xml:lang="en">
<date form="text">
<date-part name="month" suffix=" " form="short"/>
<date-part name="day" suffix=", "/>
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
<terms>

that should do it. (Unless you also want months for books etc., then do what Gracile says as well).