From koffice  Sat Dec 04 20:24:29 1999
From: claus wilke <claus.wilke () gmx ! net>
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 1999 20:24:29 +0000
To: koffice
Subject: Announcing bibliography project
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=koffice&m=94433949411863

Hi,

I have started to write a bibliography management system that might become
something as the BibTeX of KDE/KOffice. I have uploaded what I have written so
far to upload.kde.org, watch out for kbiblio if you want to have a preview.
This is my first Qt-program, so don't expect much :-). Currently it doesn't
load or save, but the basic editing functionality is there.

The general problem of a bibliography management system is that it has to
provide the possibility to generate very differently looking citations from the
same data base. In BibTeX, this is solved with the BibTeX style language that
you have to use to generate the desired output. My idea is to save the database
in XML, and then to use XSL/XSLT to produce the bibliography entries for a
particular document. In that way, one gets a) a system that is very general,
and not restricted to KOffice, and b) a system for which it should be
relatively easy to write new styles (I expect that XSL will become very
widespread in the future, so people will know it. Most people don't know the
BibTeX language, for example).

It would be helpful if somebody could explain to me the details of the KOffice
XML storage/retrieval functionality or point me to some documentation of it.
From looking at the KOffice source I didn't get it, and therefore I haven't
implemented saving/loading yet.

One warning at the end: my time is relatively limited, so I will not proceed at
lightning speed. But hopefully I will proceed steadily.

Best wishes, any feedback/help is welcome,
  Claus  

-- 
Claus Wilke
claus.wilke@gmx.net