Docear4LibreOffice and Docear4OpenOfficeA few months ago we released Docear4Word. Docear4Word is an add-on for Microsoft Word that allows you to insert and format citations and bibliographies very easily in MS Word. Many of our users love Docear4Word. However, not all of our users are using Microsoft Word but many are using OpenOffice or LibreOffice. One of them is Stephen from Uberstudent which is a Linux distribution for learners. Stephen, as many others, urged us to develop an add-on, comparable to Docear4Word, for Libre of OpenOffice. Unfortunately, we don’t have the expertise to do this.

Therefore, we would like you to help us. Do you have experience in developing add-ons for LibreOffice and/or OpenOffice? Then, please contact us. We have prepared a description of what Docear4Libre/OpenOffice should be able to do. Read it carefully, and tell us how long you would need to implement it. And don’t forget to tell us how much money you would want for it. Exactly, we are not expecting you to do it for free. We would be willing to pay something for it. Once we found an appropriate developer we will ask our users to donate for Docear4Libre/OpenOffice and give a good amount ourselves. Also Stephen will ask the users from Uberstudent to donate.

So, if you are interested in developing Docear4Libre/OpenOffice, read the specifications, and send us a quote. If you have any questions, please contact us.

If you are a user of Docear you can also help: Ask your friends if they can develop such an add-on, write about our needs on Facebook, Twitter, etc… help us to reach as many potential developers are possible!

Update February 2014: We found a developer. More information is coming soon.

Update October 2014: The original freelancer failed. We need a new one. Interested? Please contact us


Joeran Beel

Please visit https://isg.beel.org/people/joeran-beel/ for more details about me.

15 Comments

Marko · 19th February 2015 at 08:51

Hey Joeran, thanks for this great plugin, I have been using Docear4Word for a while now, really useful thing 🙂 Greetings from sunny Croatia!

Bart Provenzano · 14th February 2015 at 03:37

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ftr · 26th May 2014 at 10:37

Hi,
I am looking for a biblio database that allows to structure my notes, my ideas, and the text that follows from it. I currently use Zotero which is excellent for word-processor integration but lacks in note management and structuring.

However, docear’s lack of integration with OpenOffice/LibreOffice is a definite obstacle for me to use it. What you save in time in Docear you loose when writing the text if you have to rewrite the biblio like in the good old times.

Regards,
ftr

    Joeran [Docear] · 26th May 2014 at 11:45

    That is why we want to develop such an add-on, and need your donations.

Netphilos · 10th February 2014 at 09:46

Have you tried JabRef???? It is written in Java and has integration with LibreOffice, besides being open source. Here is the link:
http://jabref.sourceforge.net/

    Joeran [Docear] · 10th February 2014 at 10:04

    yes, we know jabref. but we want a solution that is based on the citation style language.

Eugenio Costa · 9th February 2014 at 03:03

Please!

That will be help to much!
LibreOffice + Docear = Amazing Open Source 😀

Marcio Carneiro · 29th December 2013 at 16:00

There is a mediawiki plugin. Maybe it is possible to use that as a starting point to LibreOffice.

    Joeran [Docear] · 10th February 2014 at 10:04

    we found already a developer who hopefully will be able to develop the add-on we want 🙂

Andre · 29th September 2013 at 22:55

How can I help suppot this feature? How much would it costs?

    Joeran [Docear] · 1st October 2013 at 11:30

    Hello,

    for now you can ask your friends (in real-life, on facebook, twitter, …) if any of them has the skills to develop such an add-on. Once we have found a capable developer, we will ask all our users for donations to pay the developer. Then, you are very welcome to donate. However, first we need a developer…

    Joeran [Docear] · 10th February 2014 at 10:06

    we found a developer and we will soon start a call for donation to pay him. hence, if you want to support the development, keep reading the Blog, and donate once we started the call for donation

Andres · 18th September 2013 at 15:40

Can you load Zotero as point in the middle? https://www.zotero.org/support/word_processor_plugin_installation

zotero does libre office and bibtex?

Sorry no knowledge on the programing side just something to document maybe.

I would like it to be available in the distribution package manager.

Joseph Goettgens · 27th August 2013 at 17:31

Your project should be relatively easy to implement. Essentially you have a database and want to import some records and format them according to a given specification. One could argue whether you really need the “Refresh” function, or let the plugin update the list automatically and silently (easy to do with UNO).

To be as independent from software updates as possible, I’d use the embedded BASIC interpreter for all GUI elements and a UNO/C++ plugin for all the computational needs. For my own programs I try to avoid scripted languages as much as possible, mainly because of the dependencies from other software packages.

It is also possible to write an external GUI program (MFC, Qt, Gtk) that “manipulates” the document in question from outside, where the menues inside the office program just signal the external program what to do. If there are many options and complicated dependencies among the various options then this is probably the better approach, as it might be too cumbersome to implement this with Star BASIC. Here, this is not necessary. But I do have something like a template program that uses UNO/C++ to generate Open/LibreOffice documents given a document templated and some data (e.g. in XML-Format). I use this mainly for demonstrations to show what can done with the UNO interface. If interested, I could mail a copy.

Currently, I have no idea how much work is really involved. It depends mainly what libraries can be reused (e.g. a Java Script engine needs to be embedded if citeproc-js should be used). It also depends on which abstractions you want to implement (hard code the text format, or base everything on styles). Also, which platforms do you want to support (I could do Windows, Debian and RedHat based 32bit and 64bit Linux)? And finally, what is your time scale?

I would need a few iterations with some more info from your side to be able to quote a price.

    Joeran [Docear] · 27th August 2013 at 18:20

    Hello Joseph,

    >Your project should be relatively easy to implement.
    It won’t be difficult in technical terms but as always with software projects there will be some difficulties you didn’t expected in the first place.

    >One could argue whether you really need the “Refresh
    Yes, we need this. Sometimes user would want to manually make some smaller changes e.g. at the bibliography. If a refresh would be done automatically, manually editing the bibliography would be difficult. It’s also likely that you change your database and then there need to be a refresh, except you would want to permanently monitor the database for changes.

    >I’d use the embedded BASIC interpreter for all GUI elements
    That’s fine. We don’t care about the technical details as long as it works

    >It is also possible to write an external GUI program (MFC, Qt, Gtk)
    I wouldn’t be too happy if e.g. Qt was used because users would have to install the framework, right?

    >e.g. a Java Script engine needs to be embedded if citeproc-js should be used).
    Citeproc-JS is a *must*. There is no alternative.

    >hard code the text format, or base everything on styles
    What do you mean by that?

    >Also, which platforms do you want to support (I could do
    >Windows, Debian and RedHat based 32bit and 64bit Linux)?
    It should be Windows, any major Linux distribution, and MacOS with both 32 and 64Bit.

    >what is your time scale?
    If you started around November and would finish the work within a month a two, that would be great.

    I guess it would be best if you contact us by email to discuss further details (info@docear.org). Feel free to write in German :-).

    Best,
    Joeran

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