Exporting HTML with Citations

Hello All!

I’m wondering if there is a way to generate in-text citations and a bibliography when exporting to HTML.

To begin, it just so happens that @bcrane has mentioned a portion of what I’m trying to achieve in a blog post titled “Exporting a Bibliographic Citation” (I cannot post links).

Thank you to him for that. This would address my interest in generating bibliographies. Now is just the matter of citations/and or footnotes.

I can imagine that certain attributes and export methods such as HTMLExportCommand and HTMLExport-alternatemate or HTMLMarkdown would allow one to execute command line programs/scripts such as pandoc or multimarkdown and leverage Markdown syntax or (any of its derivatives that are supported by pandoc).

However, I’m concerned with how that will affect the implementation of features such as Ziplinks, for example and the ability to generate links to other notes upon export. I would prefer to use plain and pure RTF that Tinderbox is built with preference toward. This is why I love Mr. Crane’s approach.

So would there be a non-Markdown way to go about exporting Tinderbox notes as HTML with footnotes/references generated into it? Would I be able to include the use of CSL files? I would especially love have my citations appear as footnotes a la the Chicago style. I’m sure that there would secondary issues to consider with this pursuit, e.g how to go about parsing cite keys, pg. numbers, etc.

If the answer to all of this is “not gonna happen,” I’m totally fine with that. I’m new to this program and have a vague understanding on how it operates. But for some reason I feel like this may be do-able, albeit with a lot of “^s” and "$"s involved.

Thank you!

Hi! Welcome to the forum. I think this “Exporting a Bibliographic Citation” post is the one on @bcrane’s to which you refer.

Ziplinks are just a mode of creating text links. The is no such thing as a ‘zip’ links, only text links created via the ziplinks calling method in a note’s $Text. I apologise if that sounds pedantic, but I figure to save you some confusion won the line.

Here I get a bit lost. The blog post you cite doesn’t mention markdown so I’m not sure how this is in the mix.

Well thats how HTML exports work. Are you wanting custom HTML export without editing an export template? If so, I’d say no, if only because the built-in template provide a very simple exemplar, of which users can then roll their own. Actually, it’s less work than you presume. The main work is in figuring out what data you want to export and in what format.

The textual formatting of references is something most people leave to their reference manager. But, for instance, I can Cmd+Opt+drag a reference from my Bookends reference manager I get a suitably formatted slug of text, I could keep that as a note and just include it in the export or copy/paste the text to another note’s text ready for export.

Anyway, it might be easier to help if you tell us what you’ve tried, and what you got vs. what you expected. Trying to fix imagined outcomes is always a bit more taxing!

Anyway, export is extremely flexible as you’ll see from some of the discussions here. Enjoy your Tinderbox!

Thank you for explaining Ziplinks to me.

I mentioned Markdown because nowadays it seems to be a “cure-all” for easy HTML conversion. I have doubts about using it in my notes because I know that Tinderbox first and foremost is not a Markdown editor (which is perfectly fine by me) so implementing it regularly may bring about more problems than it can solve. Or maybe it is in fact the “cure-all” that I describe it as. Who knows. I would prefer not to lean on it though.

I rather learn HTML exports and templates. Thank you for encouraging me in that direction. I guess now is when the tinkering starts. Hope to return to this thread soon with some developments.

Markdown is a great system, but at this point it is another transformation you don’t need unless you are used to using it.

Try out these demos and remember there is lots of info on aTbRef.

Hold on. Exporting notes that use Markdown syntax to HTML is a snap with Tinderbox.

  • Add the built-in Markdown prototype to your document.
  • Assign that prototype directly to your notes, or as the prototype for your prototype(s). (I.e., inherit it.)
  • Export the note(s) to HTML.

The prototype loads a special bit of software when preview or export is invoke, and that software behind the scenes, no labor on your part, handles the Markdown-to-HTML conversion.

Done. Not difficult at all.

(If you need fancier Markdown features like inline code, or tables, I can point you to how to set that up.)

Just my opinion, but I think learning HTML is good way to ruin a pleasant afternoon – or week – or month.

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Thank you @mwra and @PaulWalters. I did my fair share of lurking before registering here and I’m aware of the expertise that both of you have with TBX. I appreciate the chance to be able to consult with the both of you.

I’m really interested in the concept of “Hypertext narrative”. I never knew it was a thing until I discovered Tinderbox. Of course I knew what HTML was, but I wasn’t aware that there was an entire philosophy behind it so to speak. For this reason I’m inclined to avoid Markdown unless I feel that it’s necessary. Thank you Mark for the link to the demos and TbRef. Paul, I would still appreciate it if you were to share with me any resources on the fancier Markdown features that you referred to in the event that I change my mind as I embark on this journey.

Thanks again to the both you!