# CSL installation \[was Re: xbiblio-devel Digest, Vol 38, Issue 22\]

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [September 22, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771 "2009-09-22T15:14:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Karnesky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@Richard\_Karnesky](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Richard_Karnesky)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/1 "2009-09-22T15:14:21Z")

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> Is it feasible to simply download it to a common location, as  
> previously discussed?

It is possible, but tedious & I’ll reiterate objections I had raised previously.

I think that the site should only worry about serving up the files  
with the specified extension and mimetype (as the Zotero styles page  
does already). I would not want my styles to be installed to a common  
system or even an application-agnostic sub-directory of my home by  
default. I can think of no other format that tries to force something  
like this. Further: having written instructions to “save to a  
specified directory” is not nearly as friendly as just having  
whichever program handles that mimetype by default do the “right”  
thing.

I am in favor CSL-handling applications looking in system-wide (e.g.  
/usr/share/csl, /usr/local/share/csl) and user-wide (e.g. ~/.csl)  
directories and could see a benefit in allowing download of styles to  
these directories. But I don’t think we should somehow try to “force”  
this & I also think having styles specific to one particular user’s  
use of one particular installed version of an application makes sense.

–Rick

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**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/2 "2009-09-22T15:31:09Z")

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FWIW, I totally agree with Rick. This discussion seems a bit like a solution  
looking for a problem.

RintzeOn Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Richard Karnesky \<@Richard\_Karnesky\>wrote:

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/3 "2009-09-22T16:38:11Z")

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I have no strong opinion about the details, but I want to consider  
this use case: a user has two applications that handle CSL

What do they do with the style they find in the new repository?

Is that question completely out-of-scope for [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org) so  
that we don’t address it?

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/4 "2009-09-22T17:04:53Z")

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For a command-line tool like Pandoc, you’d just download the style to your  
folder of preference. You have to type in the style path yourself anyway, so  
there’s no real gain there by using a standardized style folder.

UI apps (Zotero, Mendeley) usually offer alternative ways to install styles:  
for Zotero you can drag-and-drop styles into a Firefox window, and the  
current way to install styles in Mendeley seems to be to just copy the new  
style to the program’s styles folder. Both applications could easily  
introduce the ability to install styles via a URI/URL.

Rintze

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**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 5:21pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/5 "2009-09-22T17:21:55Z")

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> > I have no strong opinion about the details, but I want to consider  
> > this use case: a user has two applications that handle CSL
> > 
> > What do they do with the style they find in the new repository?
> > 
> > Is that question completely out-of-scope for [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org) so  
> > that we don’t address it?
> > 
> > Bruce
> 
> For a command-line tool like Pandoc, you’d just download the style to your  
> folder of preference. You have to type in the style path yourself anyway,

This may be true now, but it’s not a settled fact for the future.

> so there’s no real gain there by using a standardized style folder.
> 
> UI apps (Zotero, Mendeley) usually offer alternative ways to install styles:  
> for Zotero you can drag-and-drop styles into a Firefox window, and the  
> current way to install styles in Mendeley seems to be to just copy the new  
> style to the program’s styles folder. Both applications could easily  
> introduce the ability to install styles via a URI/URL.

So you’re answer to my second question is “yes”?

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Rintze\_Zelle](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discourse.citationstyles.org/rintze_zelle/32/175_2.png) [@Rintze\_Zelle](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Rintze_Zelle)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/6 "2009-09-22T17:23:42Z")

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Yes.

Rintze

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Karnesky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@Richard\_Karnesky](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Richard_Karnesky)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/7 "2009-09-22T20:02:31Z")

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> I have no strong opinion about the details, but I want to consider  
> this use case: a user has two applications that handle CSL

As I do & you do, but probably not as a majority of the CSL (i.e.  
Zotero/Mendeley) end users do. At least some of us who have multiple  
CSL applications do not want _only_ a single, shared directory of styles.

> What do they do with the style they find in the new repository?

Their preferred CSL-handling application would catch it (due to the  
mimetype and/or extension) & decide what to do with it.

> Is that question completely out-of-scope for [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org) so  
> that we don’t address it?

The site should just pass it off to CSL-handling applications, as this  
will offer the best end-user experience. I don’t think we can or should  
mandate the behavior of these CSL-handling applications.

I’d encourage those who write such applications (and most are on this  
list) to allow their programs to have a “CSLPATH” that could include  
multiple directories (e.g.  
/usr/share/csl;/usr/share/zotero/styles;~/.csl;~/.mozilla/firefox/[profile]/styles)  
that would allow any kind of sharing or partitioning between users and  
applications to be achieved. It would be nice to be able to specify the  
default directory to save new styles to & offer mechanisms of overriding  
this defualt. Finally, browser-based CSL programs should have a switch  
to allow another program to become the default CSL handler (as Zotero  
does for RIS/refer now).

But I don’t think we can or should try to force this kind of ideal system.

–Rick

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Bruce_D_Arcus1)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/csl-installation-was-re-xbiblio-devel-digest-vol-38-issue-22/771/8 "2009-09-27T19:18:16Z")

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FWIW, I support all this (suggesting configurable paths, etc.). So  
we’ll leave this out of [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org).