own citations styles?

mcitations
Hi,

i just found zotero. i use the openoffice plugin. my questions is: i need another citationstyle, that cannot be found in the predined. is there a possibility to the edit or create new citationsstyles, so that i can create the style i need?
  • mcitations
    i need this style in the footnote

    Authors last name, authors first name (year), Booktitel. Location: publisher.

    example:

    Müller, Peter (2004), Handbuch der Betriebswirtschaftslehrer. Hamburg: Verlag Nemo.
  • bdarcus
    See http://www.zotero.org/styles
  • mcitations
    sorry, but i don't understand this?

    the version i need is very similar to the "Chicago Manual of Style (Note with Bibliography) " i think it need just a few changes. could help me?

    instead of this version

    Peter Meier, Handbuch BWL (Uvk, 2006)

    it should look like this

    Meier, Peter (2006), Handbuch BWL. Hamburg: UVK.
  • Gitty K
    I'm struggling with similar issues. To me this is one of the major disadvantages compared to endnote. Are there any plans to include possibilities to customize existing styles or create new one in Zotero like it is possible in endnote? And if so, when might that be available?
  • bdarcus
    edited January 31, 2008
    I'm struggling with similar issues. To me this is one of the major disadvantages compared to endnote. Are there any plans to include possibilities to customize existing styles or create new one in Zotero like it is possible in endnote? And if so, when might that be available?
    Some of us have been discussing the possibility to create a simple, easy-to-use, web interface to create new styles. That won't allow the infinite flexibility of a full editing interface, but it will be much quicker to create new styles.

    We're hoping to do that over the next few months, but no promises.

    In the meantime, feel free to post a style request here.
  • Gitty K
    that would be a great improvement and also makes more sense than adding more and more pre-defined styles. There is an infinite number of them and there'll always be something missing.

    Thanks for the otherwise terrific work!!
  • bdarcus
    edited January 31, 2008
    The idea here is really to build up a public style repository. The current one is just the start of this, allowing you to click on a style and have it installed. But you could imagine this has a lot of room to grow, with categorization by field, previews, etc., etc.

    Moreover, since the style language (CSL) is an open format, there is promise to see other projects supporting it, and other repositories.

    We all have a good plan; it just takes some time to realize ;-)
  • adamsmith
    I'd also strongly second the idea of creating a custom style tool - you can't expect everyone to write xml code, but many of us academics may have specific wishes for citation styles.
    On a more practical note, I've signed up for team Zotero for a lit-software competition:
    http://citefest.pbwiki.com/
    and while I think Zotero stands up well on most accounts, this is one 'challenge' where we'll probably lose big time.
  • bdarcus
    On a more practical note, I've signed up for team Zotero for a lit-software competition:
    http://citefest.pbwiki.com/
    and while I think Zotero stands up well on most accounts, this is one 'challenge' where we'll probably lose big time.
    Not really. The criteria includes being able to switch citation styles (which Zotero supports ... very well); it does not includes "easy-to-use style editor." So Zotero ought to do quite well.
  • Morris
    edited February 4, 2008
    I don't need the possibility to create own styles as long as the existing styles would work correctly for my language (German). But all the styles have different errors. For example Harvard produces "p.66" in short citations, and "p. 66" in biographical entries where I would need "S. 66" in both cases and so on, other styles have other errors. Lately I tried using the DIN 1505-2 style (altough I'd personally prefer a working Harvard (German)) - but here I have the problem that there's "S.. 66" in the short entries and the correct "S. 66" in the bibliography.

    Until today I have not managed to find a place where such errors could be reported. I mean, the corrections could be so easily implemented. Dunno.
    I really like this zotero but I couldn't really promote it to my students if it produces formally wrong entries. :(
  • bdarcus
    Helga, yes, I understand your frustration. It's clear that Babelzilla isn't working as well as intended.

    I wonder if perhaps the Zotero developers could come up with a better, more clear, way to resolve the problems with translations?
  • Gitty K
    the lack of a style editor would be ok to me if you only write papers for your professor. But once you start publishing you're faced with a plethora of different journals and book publishers most of which stipulate their own styles.
    So there is already quite a bit of diversity within one academic discipline. Now consider the diversity across academic field. On top of this, diversity is even further multiplied if you want to cater to scholars in different countries.

    I think it's good to have as many ready made styles as possible. But you'll never be able to capture this diversity of styles this way, not even by proxy. That is to say, I don't see how this issue can be tackled without an easy to use style editor...
  • bdarcus
    edited February 5, 2008
    Gitty K: I'm the author of CSL, and a professional scholar. Dan Cohen overseas Zotero, and is also a professional scholar. We're intimately aware of the real-world constraints of academic research nd publishing, including the insanity that is journal-specific citation styles.

    So everybody here knows it's important to have an easy-to-use style creation interface. Simply repeating the limitation over-and-over (do a search on the forums) does nothing to achieve the goal. To do it *right* is not easy, and all of us are really busy with a long list of things; in my case not least teaching and publishing myself, in the case of the Zotero devs, working on a really long list of features (think Zotero 2.0, for example), bug fixes, etc.

    But as I say above, I do think I have a plan that will work. The basic idea is a wizard web interface. The interface will step you through a series of choices, in which you can select rendering options based on pre-existing styles, complete with previews. You then assemble the final style, and when done a) it gets submitted to the public repository, and b) you can instantly install and activate it in Zotero (or in theory any application that supports CSL). I think for a lot of styles, the process will take all of five minutes.

    I have the very beginnings of a mockup here [warning: incomplete and not exactly as nice as I'm envisioning; this is just to show that we have been thinking on this]. I'm just waiting on some time to free up from someone that has the javascript and web design skills to actually implement this (since I doubt I do).
  • Gitty K
    bdcarus: I guess then that there has been a bit of misunderstanding. From your previous posts I did not get the feeling that my concerns were shared/understood and that priorities have been set in a different way. I apologize for any misreading of your messages and am glad to read more about the web interface.

    I am also aware of the fact that everybody is doing their job within certain constraints. In fact I am very grateful for the terrific work that the Zotero team is making available for free. But I have understood this forum to also be an opportunity to provide feedback and ideas for further development. Nothing else was the intention behind my remarks.
  • bdarcus
    No problem :-)
  • tkotze
    Hello. Can anyone perhaps tell me whether it is possible to modity an existing citation style so that the et al. is printed in italics?
  • menonv5
    can anyone tell me if I can do referencing with hyphen when I have multiple citations. As in: This theory was discussed in [1-5, 7]
  • bdarcus
    menonv5: at least ATM, that can be set (only) in the CSL file, with the "collapse" option set to "true."

    tkotze: not ATM. It may get added though.
  • tucc@mac.com
    bdarcus: Thank you for the fantastic work. Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm also anxiously anticipating a relatively easy-to-use style editor with Zotero. I'm in the middle of my dissertation and simply can't afford MS Word + Endnote right now. That being said, I'm not sure why I'd buy it even if I DID have the money. NeoOffice+Zotero is working great for me so far.

    Just wanted to add my vote....thank you very much!!

    Tucc
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