* [Wish List Item 627] User display of Footnote, Bibliography & Short Footnote text

[tatewise]

I was thinking it would be returned in {...}

Playing devil's advocate...
Such { curly brackets } are not illegal in Footnote or Short Footnote text so do not necessarily indicate a 'fault'.
A casual observer unfamiliar with Source Template Format { curly brackets } may think they are genuine.

e.g. \{ can be used in include an explicit { bracket.

If Citation-specific fields are used in constructs such as <{code1}|EMPTY!> or <{code1}|{code2}|{code3}> what gets returned bearing in mind each field code could be Citation or Source specific?
Note that those constructs return different text depending on whether fields are blank.
It looks quite tricky!

[Gary_G]

Mike;

Just as a note...
Being able to enter a curly brace in Footnote or Short Footnote text won't affect the ability to enter Evidence Explained style citations. I believe that they are actually explicitly excluded somewhere in the EE-Style book. Shown-Mills is pretty careful about her citation style staying away from using punctuation that may have a clear "programming" meaning or effect. However; I can't say that other citation styles don't employ them.

[tatewise]

IMO we have to cater for any user doing anything that is feasible and not rely on EE style rules.

However, I am increasingly concerned with how to handle the more complex structures involving metafields for which I gave two examples but there are many others.

I am biassed more and more in the direction of returning an empty string when a Source record is specified in conjunction with Citation-specific fields to give a clear indication that the required text cannot be formatted.
The FH Help for the function can then explain that error scenario very explicitly.
The alternatives get a bit difficult to explain how the returned text will be formatted and how to detect errors.

[Gary_G]

Mike;
I specifically recognized that EE style is not the only one.

However; I can't say that other citation styles don't employ them.

I was hoping that users of other styles would get involved, so this request would reflect the wishes of a larger group of users.

I think returning an empty string in response to invalid inputs is pretty common in string-handling functions. Strategically; that might be the safest thing to do, as CP has not yet addressed other pending wishes involving the citation-specific fields and meta-fields. When they do, they would likely adjust this capability to reflect their design decision.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Would it make sense to only support Bibliography for Sources, and Footnotes for Citations? And have two functions?

[tatewise]

No, because that would mean a Method 1 split source would have to unnecessarily find a Citation when it could simply use a Source record that produces exactly the same Footnote and Short Footnote as all its Citations.
If the user is working on say a Source Report or Query then they would be looping through Source records.

It would work if there was a shortcut %SOUR.~SOUR% that returned Citations linked to a Source in the same way %INDI.~SHAR% returns Witnessed Facts linked to an Individual. Such a shortcut would also help Method 2 lumped sources to find each associated Citation.

If the Wish List request to allow Citation-specific fields in the Bibliography format is implemented, that would further complicate matters, as then Source records could never be specified.

Anyway, I don't see the need for two functions. The allowed parameters would just have to be constrained.
e.g.
Whatever error indicator applies to say the Footnote function when a non-Citation data reference is specified would similarly be applied to a function that supports all formats when an invalid data reference is specified.

What I'm saying is that whatever function(s) we propose, the case of invalid data references must be considered.
i.e. What if the Bibliography data reference specifies an Individual record or a Media record or anything that is not a suitable Source Citation?

[ColeValleyGirl]

The current state of this Proposal is:

Proposal

Provide a function that returns as Rich Text the formatted Footnote, Bibliography, or Short Footnote text for a Source or Citation identified by a data reference.

All types of Sources and formatting will be supported.

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I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't specify what happens for invalid inputs (Footnote requested for a Source, for example) but leave it to CP to do something consistent with their approach for other invalid inputs.

If there are no objections, I suggest this can be moved to the wish list.

[tatewise]

I'm happy with that if it is understood that 'function' means an FH Function that can be used in Expressions.
A similar Plugin API Function would be useful but not essential as fhCallBuiltInFunction(...) will work.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Noted, Mike. I'll make that explicit.