how to edit the style manually?

alphayang

usually, i download the style directly from the server. but sometimes, the style needs to be modified so that the citations sort by author name or by year.

However, in the Style Editor, the downloaded style is not in the list, although it is apparent there in the style manager. what is the problem? and how can I modify the style manually?

alphayang

for example, the earth and planetary science letters style, the default format is to sort the citation by first author name, how can i easily set it to sort by year (frequently used by that journal)?

adamsmith

Normally when that happens, the style would be a dependent style, i.e. simply a link to a different style that covers multiple journals. E.g. for "Earth and Planetary Science Letters" you can click the source button on zotero.org/styles and then check the line with "independent-parent"
https://www.zotero.org/styles/earth-and-planetary-science-letters?source=1
You'll see that the parent style is Elsevier Harvard. That's the one you'd modify.

alphayang

good.

maybe it is better there is an option in the style manager itself that any user can simply choose sort by author last name or by year, in a way like wysiwyg