# Improving the styles repository

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [February 5, 2008, 8:21am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420 "2008-02-05T08:21:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dan\_Stillman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dan\_Stillman](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Dan_Stillman)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 8:21am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/1 "2008-02-05T08:21:07Z")

</div>

Moving this to the XBib list, since, as I said on one of the forum  
threads ([http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/2004/](http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/2004/)), this mostly just  
requires an up-to-date CSL processor that can be run on a server.

Some options, depending mainly on your language of choice:

1. Pick up one of the existing processors. The XBib repository  
([http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/](http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/)) has processors in  
Ruby, Python and XSLT, but they’re quite out-of-date. Various people on  
the XBib list can tell you more about the processors’ respective statuses.

2. A few days ago, Ron on the XBib list mentioned starting a PHP  
version, which may be the most promising for the near future, if for no  
other reason than that it’s pretty easy to port JavaScript to PHP, and  
Zotero’s JS-based processor is the most up-to-date version. You can talk  
to him and see if he wants help.

3. Help separate Zotero’s JS processor from any Mozilla/Zotero  
dependencies so that it can run in Rhino or, when it develops Linux  
support, Jaxer. We’d want to do this in such a way that changes in  
Zotero could be transferred to the standalone version (“citeproc-js”) as  
easily as possible.

4. Write some JS code to automate the process using Zotero itself,  
either in response to Firefox command-line arguments (probably POSTing  
the results back to a particular URL) or with a tiny embedded webserver  
responding to requests (the same way the Word/OOo plugins talk to  
Zotero). All the code to generate previews is already in cslpreview.xul,  
so you’d just need to write code to pull a style from a passed URL and  
return the output. The sample data would just exist in the Zotero  
library on the host machine.

While not the cleanest solution, #4 is probably a few hours’ work and  
would ensure that the previews were always up-to-date with the latest  
changes in Zotero.

- Dan

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johan\_Kool2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@Johan\_Kool2](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Johan_Kool2)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 11:54am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/2 "2008-02-05T11:54:18Z")

</div>

Hello,Op 5 feb 2008, om 09:21 heeft Dan Stillman het volgende geschreven:

> 1. Pick up one of the existing processors. The XBib repository  
> ([XBib download | SourceForge.net](http://xbiblio.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/xbiblio/)) has processors in  
> Ruby, Python and XSLT, but they’re quite out-of-date. Various people  
> on  
> the XBib list can tell you more about the processors’ respective  
> statuses.

The Python processor (citeproc-py) is not functional. I moved it  
towards a more object oriented approach over the weekend, but it not  
usable now at all (over ever really was before).

Johan Kool

* * *

Peacock

- Proudly presenting the peaks… -

[http://peacock.johankool.nl/](http://peacock.johankool.nl/)

---

<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:** [February 5, 2008, 1:36pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/3 "2008-02-05T13:36:54Z")

</div>

Dan Stillman wrote:

…

> 1. Help separate Zotero’s JS processor from any Mozilla/Zotero  
> dependencies so that it can run in Rhino or, when it develops Linux  
> support, Jaxer. We’d want to do this in such a way that changes in  
> Zotero could be transferred to the standalone version (“citeproc-js”) as  
> easily as possible.

I do think this should be an important goal irrespective of the  
particular request here. Along with that, I’d remove the dependence on E4X.

But I wouldn’t call this critical now, unless someone simply has the  
time, skill and interest.

> 1. Write some JS code to automate the process using Zotero itself,  
> either in response to Firefox command-line arguments (probably POSTing  
> the results back to a particular URL) or with a tiny embedded webserver  
> responding to requests (the same way the Word/OOo plugins talk to  
> Zotero). All the code to generate previews is already in cslpreview.xul,  
> so you’d just need to write code to pull a style from a passed URL and  
> return the output. The sample data would just exist in the Zotero  
> library on the host machine.

There’s a simpler solution, isn’t there?

1. write a script that generates one or more static previews. Use JS to  
load/display them as needed.

There’s another area for improvement in the repo interface: making use  
of the style metadata. For example, imagine a having them grouped by  
class (author-date, note, etc.). You could even use some magic like here  
to make it all beautiful and functional:

[http://blogmarks.net/user/depositado/marks/tag/menu](http://blogmarks.net/user/depositado/marks/tag/menu)

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jerome\_Ron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@Jerome\_Ron](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Jerome_Ron)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/4 "2008-02-05T13:59:04Z")

</div>

> 1. A few days ago, Ron on the XBib list mentioned starting a PHP  
> version, which may be the most promising for the near future, if for  
> no  
> other reason than that it’s pretty easy to port JavaScript to PHP, and  
> Zotero’s JS-based processor is the most up-to-date version. You can  
> talk to him and see if he wants help.

I guess Dan was fishing for a progress report, so here it is… 🙂

I have made some progress citeproc-php, but it has a way to go before  
it’s usable code. Maybe in a week or two (time permitting) there might  
be a prototype available.

Ron.

---

<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:** [February 5, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/5 "2008-02-05T18:25:07Z")

</div>

Ahem, should be:

[http://berndmatzner.de/jquery/hoveraccordion/](http://berndmatzner.de/jquery/hoveraccordion/)

Bruce

---

<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:** [February 5, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/6 "2008-02-05T18:33:38Z")

</div>

Nice Johan!

BTW, you included the compiled python files in the repo; did you mean  
to do that?

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dan\_Stillman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dan\_Stillman](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Dan_Stillman)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/7 "2008-02-05T18:47:03Z")

</div>

> Dan Stillman wrote:
> 
> > 1. Write some JS code to automate the process using Zotero itself,  
> > either in response to Firefox command-line arguments (probably POSTing  
> > the results back to a particular URL) or with a tiny embedded webserver  
> > responding to requests (the same way the Word/OOo plugins talk to  
> > Zotero). All the code to generate previews is already in cslpreview.xul,  
> > so you’d just need to write code to pull a style from a passed URL and  
> > return the output. The sample data would just exist in the Zotero  
> > library on the host machine.
> 
> There’s a simpler solution, isn’t there?
> 
> 1. write a script that generates one or more static previews. Use JS to  
> load/display them as needed.

A script that runs where? Manually, in Firefox, on a desktop machine? We  
can do that, of course, but the whole point of the styles page is that  
it’s updated automatically as commits come in… Or did you mean  
something else?

> There’s another area for improvement in the repo interface: making use  
> of the style metadata. For example, imagine a having them grouped by  
> class (author-date, note, etc.).

It’s certainly on the list, along with creating the Atom-based feed to  
support updating of non-default styles.

---

<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:** [February 5, 2008, 7:15pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/8 "2008-02-05T19:15:26Z")

</div>

> > There’s a simpler solution, isn’t there?
> > 
> > 1. write a script that generates one or more static previews. Use JS to  
> > load/display them as needed.
> 
> A script that runs where? Manually, in Firefox, on a desktop machine? We  
> can do that, of course, but the whole point of the styles page is that  
> it’s updated automatically as commits come in… Or did you mean  
> something else?

I don’t know; I guess it’d have to be running on the server machine so  
that when the repo is updated, the previews get regenerated.

Am just saying that there doesn’t really need to be any user  
interaction involved on the client end.

> > There’s another area for improvement in the repo interface: making use  
> > of the style metadata. For example, imagine a having them grouped by  
> > class (author-date, note, etc.).
> 
> It’s certainly on the list, along with creating the Atom-based feed to  
> support updating of non-default styles.

Yeah, I wasn’t pressing you guys; just noting it in case anyone else  
has time or interest in working on this.

Bruce

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dan\_Stillman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dan\_Stillman](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Dan_Stillman)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/improving-the-styles-repository/420/9 "2008-02-05T19:51:46Z")

</div>

Right, that’s #4. Zotero needs to be able to respond to requests in  
order to automate this. I wasn’t suggesting it had anything to do with  
end users (though allowing access to the Zotero CSL processor via an  
embedded webserver could be useful for other reasons).