Re: [wip-cite-new] Initial implementation of `biblatex' citation processor

[Bruce D'Arcus]

On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 9:25 AM Bruce D'Arcus  wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 21, 2021 at 9:13 AM Nicolas Goaziou  wrote:

> > So maybe we should try to converge first. Then, I'll happily implement
> > the result!
>
> Will do; thanks!

Denis Maier and I worked on this off-list.

Below is our suggested revised biblatex and natbib mapping table, with
the (long) explanation below it, the "extended" table for illustration
below that, and the org file with the tables attached,

| Style         | Variant              | NatBib Command | BibLaTeX Command |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|
| author (a)    | caps-full (cf)       |                | Citeauthor       |
| author (a)    | full (f)             | citeauthor*    | citeauthor       |
| author (a)    | caps (c)             | Citeauthor     | Citeauthor*      |
| author (a)    |                      | citeauthor     | citeauthor*      |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|
| noauthor (na) | bare                 | citeyear       |                  |
| noauthor (na) |                      | citeyearpar    | autocite*        |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|
| locators (l)  | bare-caps (bc)       |                | Notecite         |
| locators (l)  | bare (b)             |                | notecite         |
| locators (l)  | caps (bc)            |                | Pnotecite        |
| locators (l)  |                      |                | pnotecite        |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|
| nocite (n)    |                      | nocite         | nocite           |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|
| text (t)      | bare (b)             | citealp        |                  |
| text (t)      | caps (c)             | Citep          | Textcite         |
| text (t)      | full (f)             | citep*         |                  |
| text (t)      | bare-caps (bc)       | Citealp        |                  |
| text (t)      | bare-full (bf)       | citealp*       |                  |
| text (t)      | caps-full (cf)       | Citep*         |                  |
| text (t)      | bare-caps-full (bcf) | Citealp*       |                  |
| text (t)      |                      |                | textcite         |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|
| (default)     | caps (c)             | Citep          | Autocite         |
| (default)     | bare (b)             | citealp        | cite             |
| (default)     | bare-caps (bc)       | Citealp        | Cite             |
| (default)     | full (f)             | citep*         |                  |
| (default)     | bare-full (bf)       | citealp        |                  |
| (default)     | caps-full (cf)       | Citep*         |                  |
| (default)     | bare-caps-full (bcf) | Citealp*       |                  |
| (default)     |                      | citep          | autocite         |
|---------------+----------------------+----------------+------------------|

The key change is we have split the one table in two, with a “core”
that should definitely be included, and a separate table “extended”
that could reflect later additions.

The “core” table above provides a sensible superset of what’s in
oc-natbib, and should be a solid starting point.

This “extended” table, at the very end, is mostly to accommodate cases
where biblatex users have a default note style and want to insert
parenthetical citations, or vice versa. We do not think this is
necessary initially, and some details are unclear about how best to do
this. In particular, parencite and footcite are low-level commands,
and in the core, we rely on mostly high-level "style-independent"
commands. Hence, we have put those examples in the separate table.

As you know, biblatex has an insane amount of options, and even more
implemented in other packages like chicago, so it’s hard to know what
to include, and effectively impossible to be comprehensive with this
approach. It might be at some point users will want to be able to
configure the mappings, but it does seem premature to worry about that
ATM.

Beyond the additional mappings, we also suggest two changes:

1. to rename the “year” style in both oc-natbib and oc-biblatex to the
broader “noauthor”, aka “suppress author”.
2. to remove the “title” style (below we moved it to the "extended" table)

Explanation:

Earlier iterations of org-cite had an option to “suppress-author” on
individual citation references using a minus sign. This has since been
removed, with the idea this can and should be handled with the style
system.

In both oc-natbib and oc-biblatex, the  “year” style achieves this for
author-date styles. But there’s broader value in the feature, and
“year” in that broader context is likely to be confusing, or simply
wrong (e.g require a different command mapping).  You will see, for
example, that we map this style to citeyear in natbib, but to the more
general “style-independent” biblatex command “autocite*”, which
produces the same output as citeyear in author-date styles.

We have suggested the style name “noauthor” here instead, since it
mirrors “nocite”, and is shorter than “supressauthor”.

It seems possible some natbib users may be confused by this, but we
expect it to be a temporary confusion, and on balance this is a better
approach, as the styles can be consistent across output formats and
styles.

On “title”, we found the biblatex manual says about these commands:
"They are intended for use in the flow of text. Note that all text
commands are excluded from citation tracking." We understand this to
say "they are not real citation commands."

Another question we pondered was whether all those cite/text  (and
probably default) natbib variants make sense in practice. We have left
them in, on the basis we won't really know until people start using
this. But it's worth noting that a lot of those variants don't appear
to have (certainly not in this table) equivalent biblatex commands. So
users will have to be aware of that, and how the fall back system
works (for example, text/bare-caps-full will in practice just fall
back to text for biblatex).

I think that covers everything.

If you have any questions on this, please let us know of course.

And, of course, if you use natbib or biblatex a lot, now would be a
good time to weigh in.

Bruce

PS - finally, here's the "extended" table, for illustration:

| Style        | Variant             | BibLaTeX Command |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| locators (l) | parens (p)          | pnotecite        |
| locators (l) | caps-parens (cp)    | Pnotecite        |
| locators (l) | foot (fn)           | fnotecite        |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| note (no)    |                     | footcite         |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| title (ti)   | full (f)            | citetitle*       |
| title (ti)   |                     | citetitle        |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| smart (sm)   | caps (c)            | Smartcite        |
| smart (sm)   |                     | smartcite        |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| super (su)   |                     | supercite        |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| foot (ft)    |                     | footcite         |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|
| parens (p)   | caps-noauthor (cna) | Parencite*       |
| parens (p)   | noauthor (na)       | parencite*       |
| parens (p)   | caps (c)            | Parencite        |
| parens (p)   |                     | parencite        |
|--------------+---------------------+------------------|

mapping.org
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