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Right, fair question. I've tried many reference managers over several years but not one of them really felt like home. Their PDF viewer was lacking the features
by jaywonchung 3y ago
Right, fair question. I've tried many reference managers over several years but not one of them really felt like home. Their PDF viewer was lacking the features I wanted (e.g., jumping back to the original place after clicking an internal link, Sioyek-like preview windows), filtering wasn't expressive enough, etc, and above all, I just wanted to be in the command line.
So, currently, I don't use any reference management software. In my current paper writing workflow I simply do not need one, as I have a giant `ref.bib` file that I constantly append with relevant papers in my field, and I can just throw that into my LaTeX project to get all the references I can possibly want. Then, I use `reason` as a glue tool that simply tracks the PDF location and markdown location of each paper, allowing me to use my favorite text editor (nvim) and favorite PDF viewer (Sioyek) without being tied to any reference management software.
To be fair, I may be missing out on some of the great features reference managers might be providing. Please feel free to enlighten me :)
- evolve2k 3y agoIncase it’s of any value, thought I’d share my situation and where your tool might fit. Im currently completing a phd and having a dev background wanted a good text based workflow, specifically the Zettelkasten method using Zotero and Obsidian, something like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mMpVMuGBGe8&pp=ygUiWmV0ZWxrYXNrZW4gbWV0aG9kIG9ic2lkaWFuIHpvdGVybw%3D%3D https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mMpVMuGBGe8&pp=ygUiWmV0ZWxrYXN... I use Zotero as the reference manager, I can get academic articles “PDFs” into it via many means. I’ve then wired up Obsidian, which is just a folder of Markdown files in a way that links to Zotero and I can drop reference links in the docs I write in obsidian that link to Zotero. I do my writing in obsidian, and then can export to word at which time references to Zotero are auto generated into proper academic references and a useable bibliography. I’ve documented the whole workflow here in the hope others use it to and contribute improvements: https://github.com/evolve2k/obsidian-pandoc-academic-word-doc-guide/tree/main https://github.com/evolve2k/obsidian-pandoc-academic-word-do... Linking Zotero and Obsidian together it’s recommended to use the Better Bibtex plug-in. Bibtex very much can be used for this workflow but CSLJSON is also supported. For your tools consider supporting Bibtex and/or CSLJSON and you’ll be able to be folded into many workflows. My existing workflow solves “article collection & collaborative collection” (Zotero) followed on to academic paper writing and generating via an obsidian markdown workflow. What I’m personally missing is the cli way to ask quick questions about my Zotero articles dataset. I think that’s a great place for your tool. Also while I started with Bibtex my research showed that longer bibliographies work better with CSLJSON, it’s basically like Bibtex but as a json format. Worth a look: https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema Here’s the relevant part of my workflow where I stick Zotero and obsidian together by configuring Bibtex/CSLJSON. https://github.com/evolve2k/obsidian-pandoc-academic-word-doc-guide/blob/main/setup-zotero-obsidian.md https://github.com/evolve2k/obsidian-pandoc-academic-word-do...
- jaywonchung 3y agoWow this is awesome. Thanks a lot for sharing! I've always been meaning to try out Obsidian. Looks like this could be a good chance.