Update 2016-01-12: The salary in Tokyo would be around 1.600 US$ per month, not 1.400. 2015 has been a rather quiet year for Docear, but 2016 will be different. We have lots of ideas for new projects, and even better – we have funding to pay at least 1 Master or Read more…
More than half a year ago, we started a call for donation to pay a freelancer who wanted to develop an add-on for LibreOffice and OpenOffice, comparable to Docear4Word. Originally, we estimated that it would take about 2 months before the work was completed, or at least a decent demo version was ready to released. Well, that estimate wasn’t quite precise – the developer hasn’t finished even an alpha version yet. In addition, we are still missing a significant amount of donations to fully pay the developer ($1,000 are missing).
The question arises, how to proceed? We see the following options:
1. Just wait
The freelancer is still working on the add-on. So, most likely he will finish the add-on some day – maybe in 2 months, maybe in 6 months, maybe in a year. However, I have to point out that my satisfaction with the current progress and outcomes are not overwhelming. Personally, I have some doubts that the final add-on will meet the quality expectations I have, and that probably most Docear users have. However, I suggest you get an idea of the add-on yourself. The freelancer sent me a demo version that you can try out. To do so, download the add-on, store it on your hard drive, and open the downloaded file with LibreOffice or OpenOffice. This should open an installation dialog, and you need to confirm all messages in the dialog. After the installation, you should restart Libre/OpenOffice. If you are using OpenOffice, you will have a Docear entry in the menu and in the tool bar (see screenshot below). If you are using LibreOffice, you will only have an entry in the menu.
In the past years, Docear evolved to a powerful software for managing literature and references. However, we have to admit that Docear is still not as user friendly as we would like it to be. This is mainly caused by the workspace concept which is not very intuitive. We are aware of this problem and we would like to fix it. Therefore, we spent the last weeks with a lot of brainstorming and discussions, and we came up with a new concept. We believe it to be more intuitive, and more similar to the concepts you know from other reference managers. In the following, we would like to introduce our ideas for the new workspace concept and some other changes and we ask you for your feedback. Please let us know in the comments if you like our ideas, and how we could make the concept even better.
This is how the new workspace panel would look like after you freshly installed Docear and sorted a few PDFs including annotations (click the image to enlarge it).
There are four main categories in the workspace panel (left).
–> Read here for the latest update <–
One of our users’ most requested feature is an add-on for LibreOffice and OpenOffice, similar to Docear4Word, which allows adding formatted references and bibliographies in Microsoft Word based on Docear’s BibTeX files. Unfortunately, we have no skills in developing add-ons for Libre or OpenOffice, which is why we were looking for a freelancer to help us. Now, finally, we found one. The freelancer is offering to develop a pendant to Docear4Word that works with LibreOffice and OpenOffice. This means, you will be able to select a reference from Docears’ BibTeX database, and the add-on will insert the in-text citation and the bibliography in your Libre/OpenOffice document. Analog to Docear4Word, you will be able to choose from more than 2,000 citation styles to format your references.
However, the freelancer is not developing the add-on for free. He asks for 2500 US$ (~1,900€), which we believe to be a fair price. Therefore, we kindly ask you to donate, so we can pay the freelancer to develop a Docear4Libre/OpenOffice. Of course, the add-on will be open-source, reading not only Docear’s BibTeX files but also BibTeX files of other BibTeX based reference managers. The freelancer already developed a simple proof-of concept (see screenshot), which uses citeproc-java to add BibTeX based references. As such, we have no doubts that the freelancer will be able to deliver the promised add-on — if we can collect enough money.
The freelancer’s is already working on the add-on and his goal is to finish it in the next two months or so. However, as long as we cannot pay him, he will not release the add-on, even if he has finished his work (and if he learns that there are no donations coming, he might decide to stop his work at any time). Therefore, if you want a Docear4Libre/OpenOffice, please donate now! Donate 1$, 5$, 10$, 50$ or 500$ — any contribution matters, and the sooner we have all the money, the sooner you can manage your BibTeX references in LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Donate via PayPal, or, to save PayPal fees, make a SEPA bank transfer to Docear, IBAN DE18700222000020015578, BIC FDDODEMMXXX. SEPA bank transfers are free of charge within the European Union.
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We will keep you posted on the amount of donations, and any important news.
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The new Docear4Word v1.23 is out as Beta version. Changes are A more detailed error message when there is a parsing error in your BibTeX file. The latest v1.0.517 version of CiteProc-JS has been included. This should finally solve all the sorting and numbering issues. We made some adjustment that Read more…
Today we released Docear4Word 1.2. It contains a few bug fixes. More precisely, we upgraded to the latest citeproc-js version which should fix some ordering problems. In addition, there was a bug that prevented to add the issue number of a reference into the bibliography. That is fixed now. Here Read more…
A 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.
Docear4Word 1.1 is available for download and it offers two new features that will improve your work with references in Microsoft Word a lot. Actually, we added two new elements to the “Add References” dialog.
The first one is a “Docear->Docear4Word” button. It’s intended for adding several references at once when you have multiple BibTeX keys in our clipboard. And here is how it works: Most references managers (e.g. JabRef and Docear) allow you to select several reference entries from the database and copy their BibTeX keys to the clipboard. That means you have a string like “Cohen05,ritchie2008,Eto12” in your clipboard. Now, when you press the “Docear->Docear4Word” button, Docear4Word will automatically get that string from the clipboard, identify the BibTeX keys and select the references belonging to the keys. This will make inserting several references at once much easier.
Today we released Docear4Word 1.01. The add-on for Microsoft Word allows you to manage your Docear references (and any other references stored as BibTeX) directly within Microsoft Word. Version 1.01 includes the following changes. Download it here!
After releasing the first private Beta of Docear4Word a few weeks ago, we are confident to release the first public Beta in about a week. Currently we are working on the final mapping of BibTeX fields and types with the corresponding entries of the Citation Style Language (CSL). Unfortunately, it is not always obvious how to match BibTeX and CSL. Our current mapping looks like the following. If you think something is missing, or incorrect, please let us know.
