Comments on: EndNote Sends Thugs to Bust Inkwells http://grandtextauto.org/2008/11/01/endnote-sends-thugs-to-bust-inkwells/ A group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:43:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 By: Mark Nelson http://grandtextauto.org/2008/11/01/endnote-sends-thugs-to-bust-inkwells/comment-page-1/#comment-338833 Mark Nelson Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:44:12 +0000 http://grandtextauto.org/?p=2210#comment-338833 Ian: Although I've only used it a bit, Zotero works perfectly fine offline. It's implemented in a Firefox plugin, but not inherently web based--- that plugin stores all its information locally and can be used without an internet connection. The connection with the webbrowser seems to be mainly to allow it to slurp in references from webpages without having its own html-parsing (not to mention http) infrastructure, plus it gets to piggyback on Firefox's XUL as a multiplatform GUI toolkit. My initial complaints (currently being addressed) were actually in the other direction, that it isn't online <i>enough</i>. :) I use a number of different machines, so don't want my bibliography manged entirely locally; fortunately, the in-development v1.5 lets you sync your bibliography data between machines via the zotero.org server, and further lets you sync files attached to the bibliographies (like PDFs) via your own WebDAV space, if you have any. I do find it clunky to actually manage references with, though. The browsing in particular is terrible; without going into an advanced search pane, I can't just do things like click on an author's name to get a list of all papers in my DB from that author. Ian: Although I’ve only used it a bit, Zotero works perfectly fine offline. It’s implemented in a Firefox plugin, but not inherently web based— that plugin stores all its information locally and can be used without an internet connection. The connection with the webbrowser seems to be mainly to allow it to slurp in references from webpages without having its own html-parsing (not to mention http) infrastructure, plus it gets to piggyback on Firefox’s XUL as a multiplatform GUI toolkit.

My initial complaints (currently being addressed) were actually in the other direction, that it isn’t online enough. :) I use a number of different machines, so don’t want my bibliography manged entirely locally; fortunately, the in-development v1.5 lets you sync your bibliography data between machines via the zotero.org server, and further lets you sync files attached to the bibliographies (like PDFs) via your own WebDAV space, if you have any.

I do find it clunky to actually manage references with, though. The browsing in particular is terrible; without going into an advanced search pane, I can’t just do things like click on an author’s name to get a list of all papers in my DB from that author.

]]> By: Ian Bogost http://grandtextauto.org/2008/11/01/endnote-sends-thugs-to-bust-inkwells/comment-page-1/#comment-338821 Ian Bogost Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:56:42 +0000 http://grandtextauto.org/?p=2210#comment-338821 Functionally, EndNote has never been a very good program, for a lot of reasons. It integrates easily only with Word, for example, but moreso it is awkward and clumsy to use in every possible way. It's better than BibTeX for those of us who don't program our writing, but I was already moving away from it. Despite the misfortune of the lawsuit, I don't know that Zotero is much more viable an option, from my perspective. As someone who works in a variety of places, including airplanes and cafes sans wifi, a web-based reference tool is not at all what I want. Unless I'm misunderstanding how it works. Functionally, EndNote has never been a very good program, for a lot of reasons. It integrates easily only with Word, for example, but moreso it is awkward and clumsy to use in every possible way. It’s better than BibTeX for those of us who don’t program our writing, but I was already moving away from it.

Despite the misfortune of the lawsuit, I don’t know that Zotero is much more viable an option, from my perspective. As someone who works in a variety of places, including airplanes and cafes sans wifi, a web-based reference tool is not at all what I want. Unless I’m misunderstanding how it works.

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