Using citations with alternative formats

[sorsted]

Description

Suppose that I have a citation, e.g. @svendsen2007. If I write @svendsen2007 [p. 233], then Zettlr correctly detects that I referred to page 233, and hence the citation is rendered in the editor as Svendsen (2007, 233). Similarly, if I write @svendsen2007 [part IV], it is rendered as Svendsen (2007, pt. IV). But suppose that I write something in a format that Zettlr didn’t expect, e.g. @svendsen2007 [epilogue]. Then it is simply rendered as Svendsen (2007). The epilogue part is completely invisible until I start editing the source again.

Reproducing

See above.

Zettlr version

3.2.1

Installation Method

From the Website or GitHub

Installation Method (Other)

No response

Your Platform

• [X] Windows
• [ ] macOS
• [ ] Linux

Architecture

• [X] Intel 64bit
• [ ] ARM 64bit (includes Apple Silicon)

Operating System Version

Windows 11

Additional Information

No response

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[nathanlesage]

That is not an alternative format, but I agree that I cheaped out in the citation parsing until now and didn't properly implement non-locator citation suffixes. I was planning to revisit this at some point, but as nobody has complained until now it got bumped down the priority list.

[sorsted]

Honestly, why not just write out whatever it was that the user wrote? If they wrote @svendsen2007 [page 233], render it as Svendsen (2007, page 233). If they write @svendsen2007 [p. 233], render it as Svendsen (2007, p. 233). If they wrote @svendsen2007 [233], render it as Svendsen (2007, 233). Why go through the trouble of trying to make the citation format consistent in a Markdown editor? Such things can be done by whatever format the Markdown is converted to (such as LaTeX+BibLaTeX).

[nathanlesage]

Why go through the trouble of trying to make the citation format consistent in a Markdown editor? Such things can be done by whatever format the Markdown is converted to (such as LaTeX+BibLaTeX).

Because it should give users reasonable feedback if a locator was properly detected. There is quite a lot of complexity to citations, and "just giving out what the user wrote" doesn't really work.

[sorsted]

“Just giving out what the user wrote” is, as far as I know, more or less what BibLaTeX does. It interprets pure numbers as page numbers, but that's basically it. Is Zettlr supposed to have a more advanced locator detection system than BibLaTeX?

[nathanlesage]

Zettlr sticks to the Pandoc way, and I've seen John and Albert both criticize how complex it actually is.