Proposed markup
At a minimum, we need the following markup.
A way to refer to a citation
We need a way in the body of a page to refer to a citation in the bibliography. Markup options include:
- the Cite:ref-id markup — treat a reference to a citation like an intermap link
- the disadvantage of this approach is that it’s not an intermap link, unless we allow markup like [[Cite:ref-id | alternate text]]
- the (:cite ref-id:) markup — treat a reference like a directive
- the disadvantage of this approach is that directives are not normally used to define hyperlinks
- the REF(ref-id) markup — treat a reference to a citation like an equation, figure or table reference
- the disadvantage of this approach is that the markup is not like any core wiki markup
In the first instance, we will use the ref-id, perhaps reformatted, as the link text.
- Database page option
- By default, the markup looks on the current page (or {$Name}-BibDB page) for the citations database and generates a text-style reference link. Clicking the link displays the citation. However, there may be issues to resolve when publishing multiple pages, each with its own local citations database. How do we combine several citation sources? It may be better to force a separation between page content and citations. This would give more long term flexibility. This leads to…
- Database group option
- By default, the markup looks in (say) the {$Group-BibDB} group for the citations database and generates a text-style reference link. Clicking the link displays the citation.
A way to declare a citations database
Assume citations will be stored in individual wiki pages in a bibliography group. We need a way to specify matters such as the name of the database and how references and citations will be displayed.
- a (:citations GroupName :) directive specifies the location of the database
- the disadvantage of this approach is that an author could change the database in the middle of a page, although some may see this as a benefit
- use Group.ref-id markup to refer to a citation — the group becomes the database until further notice
- the disadvantage of this approach is that an author could change the database in the middle of a page
- look in a predefined list of groups until you find the citation, such as {$Group}-BibDB, BibliographyDB, Bibliography
- the disadvantage of this approach is that it lacks flexibility (but it is probably the easiest to implement)
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