Thanks for an encouraging reply!

I’ll give it another try, but a graphical interface for editing citation styles (similar to what is found in EndNote) would make switching from other citation software to Zotero much more tempting, and no doubt would lead to more users from the scientific community.

JonEP, thank you for your words of encouragement. I should maybe point out that I'm not involved in the wysiwyg editor project personally, mainly because I also have too many other things that I need to do. :) But the project link is here, if you ever get curious and want to follow along.

John

I know CSL is more simple and elegant from the perspective of people who have experience with coding, but as a general user who does not want to have to get into coding, it's a real drawback.

having worked with CSL and some with Endnote, I'd want to add that the main advantage of CSL is not that it is somehow "purer" - which I don't care about all that much either - but that it allows things that Endnote styles don't.
There is the obvious easy switching between Footnote-based, and in-text styles, but more importantly there are a whole bunch of little things "under the hood" that allow for better, more precise styles - it's functions like the "group" feature that allows citations to remain correct when data in a field is missing or additional data is given
(think e.g. of something like: Author. Title. 2nd vol, 3rd Edition.
- now take 3rd Edition out and you want the period after 2nd vol)
It also allows for more complicated rules based on conditionals -
"If an item has a URL put [internet] after the title" and more complicated versions of that.
There is probably more that I'm forgetting - Endnote styles give you a fake sense of customizability that falls apart as things get serious - to wits, compare the better and more complicated CSL style output - MLA, Chicago, APA 6th edition - with Ednote output.

Hello. CSL may well be easier than its competitors, but I think you're still slightly detached from the real world. There is plainly, for the general user (like me), a huge gap in user-friendliness between the main Zotero interface (which is immediately usable), and the obscurity of the process by which a changes in the style can be made. I've been sitting here for 3 hours trying to follow the instructions to make a small change. I've failed. I contend that only a tiny proportion of the computer-using public would ever be able to edit a style as things are at the moment. A 'graphical interface' (as you put it - although, actually, even that's a pretty technical term if you think of it) must be the way to go.

@Robaki,

CSL may well be easier than its competitors

That pretty well says it. Styles are complex, and whatever your favored flavor of interface might be, any tool that controls them programmatically will take some learning. If three hours is too much to tolerate, you're probably better off either relying on pre-spun styles, or hiring a style designer.

but it's all too easy to end up with a style editor that's just as complicated to use as when you hand edit the XML code with a text editor.

and, to make things worse, produces code that on the one hand does end up needing some finishing touches by hand and on the other hand is so sonvoluted that these finishing touches are a nightmare to add.

To give you a sense of the difficulties - Mendeley, a well (venture capital) funded London-based start-up began development on an online style editor for CSL more than 2 years ago and it's still not released into the public.

Otherwise, what the others say - if you have a specific question about editing a style just ask it and you'll likely get a quick answer.

unfortunately, any style editor able to make small changes would have to be able to fully understand and work with CSL code - there are various ways to add, say, a comma/colon (as you may have noticed), for example. If a style editor could do small changes it could do larger ones, too.

As for getting your file back into Zotero - what _exactly_ happens? Also, try through the style manager - that might give you a more helpful error message - this should be an easy fix.

edit: the style manager is under preferences/styles or preferences/cite depending on your Zotero version.

ah yes - it looks like you may have removed the title (and/or the id) from the style. Towards the top of the style you have two lines that looks like this (example from ASQ)
<title>Administrative Science Quaterly</title>
<id>http://www.zotero.org/styles/administrative-science-quaterly</id>;

Every style _must_ have these two lines and each of these lines _must_ contain something. I.e. in your case this could be:
<title>Rob's Style</title>
<id>http://www.zotero.org/styles/robs-style</id>;

(note that it doesn't matter whether the URI in the <id> field actually exists on the web).

ah - I had forgotten about Mark's tutorial - going through some of the most common changes is indeed useful. We should probably put up something similar on zotero and link to it from the step by step guide - until someone finds the time, we could just link to mark.

for those who read French, this tutorial/collection of hints is useful http://www.thomaslienhard.fr/TutorielZotero.html . Some of the information dates from before the current version of zotero and csl, but most is still applicable.

You are too close to give up. Please share the file here (e.g. via pastebin), I want to see if it works on my end, and if it does, I'm going to tell you the exact steps I took to install it.

That's the stuff.

There are two problems. One is this:<text variable="URL" prefix="<" suffix=">"/>which should be written like this:<text variable="URL" prefix="<" suffix=">"/>
The other is the first line:<style class="in-text"
version="1.0"
demote-non-dropping-particle="sort-only">which should have a namespace declaration, like this:<style class="in-text"
xmlns="http://purl.org/net/xbiblio/csl"
version="1.0"
demote-non-dropping-particle="sort-only">

If you make those two changes, the style is valid and should load fine.

This does indicate that it would be helpful if Zotero threw an error if a particular style failed to validate, instead of failing silently. Added to the papercuts thread.

WE are waiting for an IDE with a GUI for CSL
This editor will be a great improvement
Do you know any expected time to get such an editor lunched for users ?
thanks

Any word on when it might be possible for non-programmer types to create or edit styles? Is the CSL editor being actively developed?