mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Carlos Duarte <address@hidden>]

I already mentioned this before, but TeXmacs is severely lacking in the 
bibliographic department which, for a scientific document writing tool, is 
somewhat serious.

My main "gripes" with the bibliographic implementation of TeXmacs are:

1- Cumbersome way to add bibliography!

When generating the bibliography, you have to guess (or remember) the name of 
the BIBTeX style (.bst) you want to use! A simple submenu or command window, 
with the available styles (a bit like LyX does, it seems) would be extremely 
helpful!
Also, it would be excellent if when updating the document for bibliography, 
TeXmacs could warn the user of bad reference keys! Having to scan the 
document for missing [?] is both time-wasting and bothersome.

2- Only "simpler" cites supported

TeXmacs only seems to support simple citations, of the type "[citation]". A 
compatibility with natbib (or using natbib for generating citations) is 
essential. I, for one, am writing a paper on TeXmacs and I have to use the 
Elsevier style (which is natbib dependent) which is does not work well (due 
to the lack of natbib support) with TeXmacs. I am still trying to find a way 
around it, but its not easy. If anyone knows a way of using natbibt with 
TeXmacs, I would appreciate telling me how.

3- Cite-while-writing

A Cite-while-you-write would be extremely useful for more "obscure" 
citations. 
This would, of course, imply either adapting an existent bibligraphic manager 
to TeXmacs (and the best one IMHO is wbibdb which runs under windows!!!) or 
writing a new one from scratch... This is more a suggestion than a complaint!


I know I might be asking for too much, but I do believe that for TeXmacs to 
get a firmer grip on the scientific publishing market it has to become more 
adequate to the task. Another thing that would be great (and now I might be 
pushing it a bit too far) is adding a pdf export option (i.e. compiling into 
PDF). Most publishers will accept PDF's while PS is not as widely accepted.

Carlos



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Carlos Filipe Moreira Duarte,Lic. Chem. Eng.
Ph.D. Student
Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering - University of Porto
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, S/N
4200-465 Porto - PORTUGAL

Tel.:+351 22 508 1636 Fax.:+351 22 508 1674
Email: address@hidden
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