using ConTeXt and not LaTeX you maybe also use a nice reference management software the main stream does not know about. But probably it is not related to ConTeXt at all since it is BibTeX in the end.

I can warmly recommend Zotero. It works very well and can fetch content directly from web pages (also recognizes PubMed, ScienceDirect, Google Books etc. automatically). The best feature is automatic sync of content to either the Zotero server or your own. The Firefox plugin is nice, and now there is also an alpha standalone app in in development. The software is open source and in use in many universities worldwide. http://www.zotero.org/about/ Best, Otso Helenius

On May 23, 2011, at 10:45 PM, Stefan Müller wrote:

+1 for Zotero

I tried Mendeley some time ago. It's standalone but sill quite similar to Zotero. "Browser-integration" works via a special bookmark. It also has an embedded pdf-viewer, which is very neat. Reason for changing to Zotereo were some strange bibtex-export issues, where the bibtex file got messed up and had to be readjusted manually.

I find Zotero useless for my work with ConTeXt. You cannot have cross-references within your bibliographic items, and it is impossible to have proper markup in bibliographical items. For me, both are absolute killer arguments; I cannot work with zotero. And the bibtex export sucks; important features such as bibtex strings are not supported. So I would actually recommend jabref if you need a cross-platform tool or bibdesk if you're using OS X exclusively. Regarding a system when you write your context files: I use Emacs, and I haven't seen anything more powerful or more convenient than reftex (which also works with context, after a few tweaks in your configuration file). Thomas

I hope my question does not come off as too aggressive, but why on earth are we still using BibTeX? Or, more accurately, when can we _stop_ using BibTeX and move onto something that has native UTF-8 support and can also integrate with a reasonable configuration environment such as CSL? What is the next step for bibliographies in Context? Surely we won't be chained to BibTeX (which has seemingly been largely been in practice for the sake of BibLaTeX) forever?

On May 23, 2011, at 11:32 PM, John Haltiwanger wrote:

I hope my question does not come off as too aggressive, but why on earth are we still using BibTeX? Or, more accurately, when can we _stop_ using BibTeX and move onto something that has native UTF-8 support and can also integrate with a reasonable configuration environment such as CSL?

What is the next step for bibliographies in Context? Surely we won't be chained to BibTeX (which has seemingly been largely been in practice for the sake of BibLaTeX) forever?

You do sound a bit impatient, but the answer is: bibtex is a beast, but bibliographies is such an endless topic, there are so many permutations and possibilities and options that "replacing bibtex" is easier said than done. bibtex gets the job done, most of the time, and I've always heard that there will be a "next big thing which will replace bibtex," but it never quite happened. zotero's approach (a completely untransparent, complex and hence fragile sql database) is a lot worse than bibtex. As to the question "why strings": Pontus's answer named one important aspect. I have several .bib files which contain nothing but string definitions: one with abbreviated, one with full journal titles; one with English strings ("reprint," "Munich") and one with the German equivalent ("Nachdruck," "München"). Including the right file(s) will then provide the desired output. Thomas

On Mon 23 May 2011, Stefan Müller wrote:

Okay, then I should definitely take a look at JabRef. Anyhow, maybe I'm naive here, but I don't see a reason why Zotero should support BibTeX Strings. If I type the BibTeX file manually, sure. But Zotero reads the (e.g.) Journal names from the corresponding websites, so there should be no need to replace those with abbreviations. Is it because I don't understand BibTeX strings?

I believe that one advantage is adding a level of indirection for journal naming: you can have, for example, one definition file which defines JISN as ‘Journal of Inconveniently Sesquepedalian Nomenclature’, and another defining it as ‘J. Inc. Ses. Nom.’, and switch between different definition files according to publisher requirements, space restrictions, and so on. Pont