Copyright: Copyright ©2000 Kai Schreiber


Contents

BiBLE for Windows Help
V0.99

BiBLE improves BibTeX Library Editing for Windows.

I have written the program to suit my needs, use it at your own risk.

Before you start, read this manual. In particular, do not edit your database without backup before you understand what you're doing. Editing you do on screen is immediately reflected in the database and as of yet there is no undo-function.

Now you've been warned, here's your menu:

Creating a new library

Opening an existing library

Saving your library

Program Options

Filtering

Sorting

Displaying and editing items

Create a new item

Working with the clipboard

Deleting an item

Create custom fields

Consistency check

Message Log

BiBLE was written by Kai Schreiber. If you want to use it, send him a nice postcard. If you find any errors or have wishes for future versions, send him an email.

For postcards:

Kai Schreiber

Sieben-Höfe-Straße 105

72072 Tübingen

Germany

For bugs and wishes:

schreiber@genista.de

BiBLE V0.99 was declared usable and packed on March 15th 2000.


Exit Options

When you close the main window, choose File/Exit or Press CTRL-ALT-X BiBLE exits. In the exit tab of the Options Dialog you can choose whether BiBLE should auto save your database upon exit. you can also have sorting and filtering switched off upon exit, so you don't leave them on and wonder why you don't see the complete library next time.

Also, you can have BiBLE remember it's window size between sessions.


Filter Options

The filter tab of the options dialog gives you the opportunity to choose which items to display.

You can switch filtering on or off altogether, invert the filtering rules by clicking on the button (thus displaying the items not displayed at the moment while filtering out the ones displayed now), choose the operator to apply to the three lines (all means all of the lines must be true to display the item, any means the item will be displayed if any of the lines evaluates to true).

Within the lines, choosing "line off" as the field name switches off that line.


Filtering

Filtering affects the subset of your libraries entries that is displayed in the main window. You can use the filter tab of the options dialog to select up to three conditions that the entries have to meet in order to be displayed.

For quickly toggle filtering you can use the Sort/Filter menu entry or press CTRL-F


Log Options

On the log-tab of the options dialog you can choose what BiBLE should do with the messages.it produces. For status messages and error messages separately you can choose:

•	whether or not they should be displayed in the main windows

•	whether or not they should be recorded in the log file

You can also have the session log stored in an external file and provide a name for it, and give a maximum of line numbers that should be stored in the log. The logfile name should be given relative to the BiBLEs startup path.


Message Log

The Message Log

See the line at the bottom of BiBLEs main window? That's the message line. Two kinds of messages can appear there, namely status messages and error messages. You can switch the output of each of those on and off selectivly in the Log Options Dialog. Also you can have them saved in the message log during the session or in a external logfile across several sessions.

To get access to your logged messages, choose Edit/View Log from the menu. A dialog will appear, showing you the current log. If you have seen enough of it, you can dismiss it or clear it first.


Opening a Library

Upon startup BiBLE automatically opens the last library file that you worked with. By selecting File/Load from the menu or pressing CTRL-L you can load a different library.

When BiBLE opens a library, line breaks are converted to spaces, multiple spaces are suppressed.

Currently BiBLE only reads @type{ref,field1={},field2={}} entries and ignores anything else.

If your library contains additional information, BiBLE is not for you! It removes everything apart from the above type entries.

BiBLE does not keep track of changes you make, so make sure you saved current changes before opening another library.


Program Options

When you click on Edit/Options in the menu or press CTRL-O BiBLE opens the options dialog. It contains four subsets of changeable parameters. Notice that there is no cancel button. Everything you change here will be reflected when you press Dismiss.

The four sections are:

Save Options

Filter Options

Exiting Options

Log Options


Save Options

Options for Saving

In the save options tab you tell BiBLE how to format the library file. You can ask it to break lines that are longer than a given number of characters, and you can insert the lines that are broken by a number of characters.

You can also switch on backing up of your libraries, which renames an existing file to have the additional extension .bak whenever you save over it. Also you can choose if you want your library to be sorted according to what you see on the screen when you save.

Whichever you choose, BiBLE always saves all the items in the library, not just the ones shown.

I recommend switching the sort upon save option on once to sort the database and then switching it off again to avoid resorting it the next time you save.

You can set a default datapath here. Make sure the path ends with a backslash.


Saving your Library

When you click on File/Save in the menu or press CTRL-S BiBLE saves the current library under the name given in the status line. It saves all the entries in your database, regardless of filtering. In some future version I plan to have an export function, that allows you to save just the filtered items.

If you selected it in the Save Options Dialog BiBLE will sort the entries prior to saving according to the present sorting order. If you haven't chosen this it will save them in the order they were in when the file was opened. New entries you may have created are appended at the end in this case.

Is you selected so, BiBLE will reformat the entries to have nice line breaks. For details see the Save Options Dialog help.


Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts

See the following list for key commands and the action they evoke.

SHORTCUT 1	SHORTCUT 2	FUNCTION
CTRL-L	L	Load library
CTRL-S	S	Save library
INSERT	N	Insert a new item
CTRL-INSERT	C	Import item from clipboard
SHIFT-INSERT	Z	Insert a custom field
DELETE	D	Delete item
CTRL-ALT-X	X,Q	Exit BiBLE
CTRL-F	F	Toggle filtering
CTRL-O	O	Display options dialog
-	E	Set focus to display window
-	V	View Log
-	A	Sort by Author
-	T	Sort by Title
-	Y	Sort by Year
-	J	Sort by Journal
-	R	Sort by Reference


Sorting

You can sort the displayed items by selecting a sorting order from the sort menu. Items will be sorted in increasing order.

You can sort your items with respect to

•	Reference

•	Title

•	Author

•	Year

•	Journal


The Status Line

The Status Line is the line on top of your bibliography items, that tells you the name of your file and how many items BiBLE found in it. The filename you see there is the one BiBLE will save to when you use the save command.


Displaying and Editing Items

To display an item and it's fields simply click on it in the main window. The display window will open.

It shows the type of the entry on top and lists all of it's fields below that.

Required fields for the chosen entry type are displayed in red, optional fields are black and custom fields are blue. Note that custom fields don't influence what your bibliography will look like, but can be used to store additional information in them.

There are some fields that may not be filled if another one is filled. The name of those will be in italics. If in that case you fill both fields, it is considered an error. BiBLE will display an error message and color the affected fields values red.

Any change of the type of the entry or the value of a field is immediately reflected in the database. Empty fields are removed from the entry, they remain in the list, though, if they're required or optional. Custom fields disappear when emptied.


Create Custom Fields

By pressing z or SHIFT-INSERT or choosing edit/Add custom field you can add a custom field to the current entry. Custom fields are not displayed in your bibliography, but can contain additional information about the item.

To remove a custom field delete it's content.


Create a New Item

Pressing INSERT or n or choosing edit/new item will create an empty new item for you to fill in. Make sure you fill in all the required fields or you will get error messages.

You can also import items from the clipboard, if they're in medline format.


Deleting an Item

Pressing CTRL-DELETE ord or choosing edit/delete item will remove the current item from the library. You will be prompted to make sure you really want to remove it.


Consistency Check

Consitency check look for double references, unfilled required fields and collisions between alternative fields (like author and editor in proceedings). Error messages will be in the log, regardless of whether error logging is switched on in Log Options or not.


Creating a Library

You can create a new library by clicking on File/New library. The default filename will be your default data path (see save options) plus the filename new.bib. To change it, use save as from the file menu.


Working with the Clipboard

You can import medline formatted articles using the windows clipboard. Copy the items medline data to the clipboard and select File/Import/From Clipboard. Your item should appear in the display window.

Import one item at a time only. Trying to import more than one item will display an error message.

The shortcuts for importing from clipboard are c or CTRL-INSERT.

You can also export items to the clipboard in medline format. This is a simple way to copy an item from one library to another. Open two instances of BiBLE with the two libraries, export the item to the clipboard and import it into the other library.