Different citekeys for each different type

rgv_

I was wondering if it was difficult to implement this feature. I will explain.

When bibliography common referencing, all types of document seems to be able of receive the same citekey format.
I mean, a book by Knuth on 1970 will be cited with, for example (assuming you have author+year format) key Knuth1970 and the same way an article written by Example on 2009 will be cited with key Example2009.

But when you enter on artistic formal writing world, you split references into formalistic (book, article, in proceedings...) and artistic references, such a films, videogames, literature books... And maybe in this cases, above all films and videogames, citekeys based on the title will be better and mnemonics-supporting.
For example right now I have a reference to the videogame Asteroids. Its citekey is Atari1979 and this is good, but Asteroids will be a totally better choice. I know I can use pin/unpin options (and this is EXTREMELY GOOD), but I was wondering, as I said, if it could be an affordable feature.

adamsmith

I'm confused whether you're talking about bibtex citekeys or citations?

In either case this can definitely be changed depending on the item type, though that is going to take some coding work either way -- probably a little easier for citation styles than for bibtex citekeys.

rgv_

I was talking about bibtex citekeys. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what is Zotero work and what is Better BibLaTex work. I use both together since the first moment so I see them as a whole bunch tool. Indeed, my horrible English is not helping at all.

adamsmith

BetterBibLaTeX has its own citekey generation code. Emiliano should be able to help you -- create an issue on his issue tracker at https://github.com/retorquere/zotero-better-bibtex/issues

emilianoeheyns

This is sort of possible with BBT, yes, but it had a bug for multiple types, fixed in .107. Note that what you want requires a pretty convoluted citekey pattern and a little inside knowledge of Zotero, but here goes:

[=computerProgram/videoRecording] [title] | [=book] bk[title] [>2] | [auth][year]

which has three patterns separated by a vertical bar, and means:

1. If the reference is either a computerProgram or a videoRecording, use "title" for the citekey. If not, don't generate a citekey
   
2. If no citekey was generated (either because the reference isn't a computerProgram or a videoRecording, or the title is empty), and the reference is a book, then generate a citekey that starts with "bk" and the title. If it's not a book, or it's shorter than 3 chars (taking into account the fixed "bk" prefix), don't generate a citekey.
   
3. If still no citekey was generated, generate one using just auth and year
   
4. if still no citekey is generated, fall back to the default, which is "zotero-[some number]".
   

I say "sort of possible", because "videogames" and "literature books" are not existing Zotero types.

It's quite possible to go way overboard with this multiple-patterns feature. I don't see much use of it in my reports, and I've stopped using it myself.

rgv_

Wow, that is quite interesting. I think the example you put guides fair enough to anyone who wants to split the citekeys in the way I was proposing.

No game type is required – in my case, computerProgram represents a game. If you then want to archive a software not a game you can use a tag “nogame” and manage your own.
Y think having video and games citekeys in this different format is such a mnemonic idea. I hope people interested on artistic management on Zotero could take advantage of this discussion.

Thanks so much you two and I will try not to bother you anymore!!!

emilianoeheyns

BBT can't just the tags to steer the key generation though.