# new styles repo at github

**URL:** <https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937>\
**Category:** CSL Development\
**Created:** [January 9, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937 "2011-01-09T15:35:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 13\
**Page:** 1

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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:** [January 9, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/1 "2011-01-09T15:35:04Z")

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So long story short:

For awhile now I and others have been wanting to move styles currently  
at [zotero.org/styles](http://zotero.org/styles) to a more the project-agnostic  
[citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org).

In discussion in the CSL community, some of us came to the conclusion  
that a distributed version control system would be a sensible  
technical foundation on which to incrementally build a next generation  
CSL distribution infrastructure. In part because of the mindshare of  
git and github, I created a citation-style-language organization at  
github.

[http://github.com/citation-style-language](http://github.com/citation-style-language)

The org infrastructure of github simply makes it easier (in fact,  
really easy) to define flexible permissions for org and repo  
managment. So, for example, the first “Team” I created was for “Style  
Editors.”

In turn, the first org repo is:

[http://github.com/citation-style-language/styles](http://github.com/citation-style-language/styles)

To create this repo, I just moved over 1.0 styles from the zotero  
repository. I did this fairly quickly, when otherwise quite busy, so I  
probably missed some. There are also some details to fix, like style  
IDs, etc.

But more importantly, I want to get people to start using this. So the  
next step is to actually get more people signed up for the  
organization, as style editors and/or admins, and to start committing.  
Is there something we can do to facilitate this?

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Ian\_Mulvany](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a9adbd/32.png) [@Ian\_Mulvany](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Ian_Mulvany)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/2 "2011-03-01T11:45:21Z")

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This looks great.

We are starting to get some users on Mendeley contributing corrections  
to styles, specifically for the ACS journals. I’d like us to be able  
to submit these as patches into the git repo. Is the current thinking  
that we should submit through sending a patch to a signed up “style  
editor”?

- Ian

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**Author:** ![Sylvester\_Keil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Sylvester\_Keil](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Sylvester_Keil)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 12:00pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/3 "2011-03-01T12:00:41Z")

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> This looks great.
> 
> We are starting to get some users on Mendeley contributing corrections  
> to styles, specifically for the ACS journals. I’d like us to be able  
> to submit these as patches into the git repo. Is the current thinking  
> that we should submit through sending a patch to a signed up “style  
> editor”?

How about using the method of fork & pull request that is employed by many open source projects on github? This would make the process of incorporating patches for the editors much easier, I think.

Sylvester

[PGP.sig](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/citationstyles/original/1X/0dab32be9f3defa2002f5d43e0833885a76cd58d.sig) (195 Bytes)

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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:** [March 1, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/4 "2011-03-01T13:11:35Z")

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This is the idea.

So for Mendeley, two possible models:

1. user submits to Mendeley, and a Mendeley CSL “style editor” just  
submits it directly to the repo

2. more technically proficient user forks the CSL repo themselves,  
makes the change (on a branch), and issues a pull request

I just added a “develop” branch to the repo for changes we may not  
ready to distribute widely initially.

Note also I setup the issue tracker.

[https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues](https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues)

I’m happy to be pretty flexible about adding style editor team  
members. So long as you prove yourself to be suitably  
technically-proficient and careful, you’re in.

Bruce

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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:** [March 1, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/5 "2011-03-01T13:45:59Z")

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BTW, if we do get this going, we are going to need a standard way to  
quickly preview changes. Something built on citeproc-js; maybe a  
little node.js commandline and/or web app?

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Robert\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@Robert\_Knight](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Robert_Knight)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/6 "2011-03-01T18:05:31Z")

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Hi Bruce,

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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:** [March 1, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/7 "2011-03-01T23:53:31Z")

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Just as a followup, please feel to comment on this issue if you have any ideas:

[https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues#issue/2](https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues#issue/2)

I based CSL’s metadata on Atom; it’s pretty much a straight copy. For  
that reason, the style id is a URI.

But if this no longer seems such a great idea given how the CSL world  
has evolved, we can always look at changes or enhancements.

In any case, my main plea is that we try to realize the potential of a  
collaboratively-developed, repo infrastructure.

Bruce

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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:** [March 4, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/8 "2011-03-04T21:15:02Z")

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For some reason this keeps bouncing. Let’s try again.---------- Forwarded message ----------  
From: Bruce D’Arcus \<@Bruce\_D\_Arcus1\>  
Date: Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 1:11 PM  
Subject: Re: [xbiblio-devel] new styles repo at github  
To: Robert Knight \<@Robert\_Knight\>

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Robert Knight \<@Robert\_Knight\> wrote:

> Hi Bruce,
> 
> On a slightly different note, are the URLs for styles on  
> [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org) now stable?

I just added an issue for this today:

[https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues#issue/2](https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/issues#issue/2)

> Mendeley Desktop has a system for  
> handling upgrades of styles (by querying a [mendeley.com](http://mendeley.com) API for style  
> updates) which uses the URL of the style (the csl:id) as the  
> identifier for this purpose, so we’d need to be sure that these URLs  
> are likely to remain valid once we start including newly added or  
> updated styles from [citationstyles.org](http://citationstyles.org) in the repository exposed to  
> the client.

Right. How about using the github API itself for updating the styles?

Bruce

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**Author:** ![Ron\_Jerome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e480ec/32.png) [@Ron\_Jerome](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Ron_Jerome)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/9 "2011-03-05T03:08:56Z")

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> Right. How about using the github API itself for updating the styles?

Works for me, I just built a form (see attached) into my CiteProc  
module which lists all the available styles from the github repo and  
lets the user select which ones to install.

Ron.

 ![](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/citationstyles/original/1X/7f11f4f95a5443600d2690423dc8c9236d56f86e.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ron\_Jerome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e480ec/32.png) [@Ron\_Jerome](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Ron_Jerome)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/10 "2011-03-06T03:26:14Z")

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> > Right. How about using the github API itself for updating the styles?
> 
> Works for me, I just built a form (see attached) into my CiteProc  
> module which lists all the available styles from the github repo and  
> lets the user select which ones to install.

So having worked with this (GitHub API) a bit, I can see that it does  
have a few downsides… While it’s real easy to get a list of files  
in the repository, the metadata for each file is limited (sha, name,  
and mime type). It would be really nice if it returned create and  
update timestamps so you could tell if the repo file is newer than the  
local one, but I can’t see any way to get that information. It would  
also be nice to be able to get the full title of the style without  
having to download the entire CSL file.

Ron.

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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:** [March 6, 2011, 10:01am UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/11 "2011-03-06T10:01:53Z")

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Yes, I was thinking that as well. I do know you can get this info from  
git itself, but am not sure if it’s available through the API.

$ git log --date=iso --pretty=format:"%ad" -1 apa.csl

Bruce

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ron\_Jerome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e480ec/32.png) [@Ron\_Jerome](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/u/Ron_Jerome)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2011, 1:20pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/12 "2011-03-06T13:20:19Z")

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That was a good hint, and in fact using the “Commits API” you can get  
the time stamps, unfortunately there is another limitatin we will bump  
into.

I just found this in the API docs…\> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Ron \<@Ron\_Jerome\> wrote:

> > > > Right. How about using the github API itself for updating the styles?
> > > 
> > > Works for me, I just built a form (see attached) into my CiteProc  
> > > module which lists all the available styles from the github repo and  
> > > lets the user select which ones to install.
> > 
> > So having worked with this (GitHub API) a bit, I can see that it does  
> > have a few downsides… While it’s real easy to get a list of files  
> > in the repository, the metadata for each file is limited (sha, name,  
> > and mime type). It would be really nice if it returned create and  
> > update timestamps so you could tell if the repo file is newer than the  
> > local one, but I can’t see any way to get that information. It would  
> > also be nice to be able to get the full title of the style without  
> > having to download the entire CSL file.
> 
> Yes, I was thinking that as well. I do know you can get this info from  
> git itself, but am not sure if it’s available through the API.
> 
> $ git log --date=iso --pretty=format:“%ad” -1 apa.csl

===========================================  
Limitations

Currently we are limiting API calls to 60 per minute. This may change  
in the future, or possibly per user at some point, but if you try to  
access the API more than 60 times in a minute, it will start giving  
you “access denied” errors.

===========================================

Given the number of style files there are in the repo, that’s going to  
be a problem.

Ron.

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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:** [March 6, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://discourse.citationstyles.org/t/new-styles-repo-at-github/937/13 "2011-03-06T14:46:12Z")

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Maybe you can more easily find out:

- the time-stamp for the last commit
- the files part of that commit

By stepping back like that, you could limit the requests? The styles  
don’t change that frequently.

Looking again at the homebrew code …

[https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Homebrew/update.rb](https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Homebrew/update.rb)

… they operate on the local git repository to pull in these sorts of  
data (updated, outdated, etc.). I guess that’s conceptually similar to  
what Mendeley is doing.

Bruce

Bruce