double post
Maria,
Alright - I think you got me on that one. I am not nearly enough of a bibtex expert to manage multiple languages with multiple ways of translating the same names and phrases…
But, in all fairness, I think this goes even beyond what bibtex was designed to do…
Wish I could help.
Fletcher,
I appreciate you always being helpful. Now I know that what I need is not offered by these apps. 
We have come far with Unicode. At the moment I am cleaning all my old files from DOS 3.0 times onwards. It is incredible how easy it has become to work in multiple languages during the last seven years. I am sure things will go on, and I am trying my best to supply a bit.
Thanks for trying,
Maria
Fletcher,
I’ve been looking at the MultiMarkDown with Scrivener section on your site, and it has been very instructive!
You mention, tantalisingly, that you are working on an InputManager for inserting BibDesk citations into MMD documents—may I ask if that is available yet? No worries if not!
One other little thing: does an XSLT stylesheet have to be in the same directory as the Scrivener file, or can that metadata item be an absolute link?
Thank you for your patience!
James.
MMD looks for the XSLT file in its own support directory, as far as I know, it is not even aware of the Scrivener project file at all. One place to put the XSLT would be, ~/Library/Application Support/MultiMarkdown/XSLT, and the other place would be inside the Scrivener.app bundle. But if you go that route, you’ll probably rather just download MMD from Fletcher’s site and install it in Application Support.
I got it working with an older version of BibDesk, but the developers of that program are trying to move away from InputManagers, so I stopped working on it and have not updated it. When they decide on the next approach (which probably won’t be until after Leopard is released), I will look at it again.
All XSLT files belong, strangely enough, in the folder called XSLT. 
OK, thanks for the reply again, Fletcher (and the gentle teasing!)
I think I’m coming to another sticking point: style. My university history department wants footnotes and references to appear in a very specific way, that is:
I’ve had a look around for ways to get this with BibTeX, but things are starting to look really complicated. Can anyone here help me out?
James.
Edit: I’ve found out its name, at least: Turabian, a variant of the Chicago style.
You can search for a bibtex “style” based on turabian. There are different templates you can use that define how the references should look. The files are labelled with the extension .bst, IIRC.
You can look at this page as an example:
http://www.cs.stir.ac.uk/~kjt/software/latex/showbst.html
Part of the reason for the existence of BibTeX is so that you can format your references appropriately, and then when someone decides you need to reformat them, you just point it to a different bst file. Of course, if your university has chosen a more esoteric format that no one else uses, you might have to create your own stylesheet if they don’t already have one (check the physics, math, and engineering departments. They tend to like LaTeX)
I found this, that might do what you need:
elec.ucl.ac.be/Digests/TeX/1992/texhax.16
Search the page for turabian
F-
That was very helpful; thank you very much. I had a feeling that BibTeX was supposed to be flexible, and, well, it’s proved to be.
For future reference (though I think Turabian usage is so esoteric that it will only be relevant to few), a BibTeX .bst file and LaTeX turabian file can be found here: gbsmith.freeshell.org/thesis/LaTeX/
Now to get on with the writing!
James.
Turabian is short-hand for a style sheet created by Kate L. Turabian, a grad-school secretary at the U. of Chicago, 1930-58. Her rules later appeared in a booklet, known as Turabian, but it’s long since been replaced by MLA and APA systems that are more streamlined, especially in the use of in-line citations.
It’s bizarre that in 2007 your department still insists on a 50-year-old set of rules. To get a section or chapter published by a professional journal, you will have to change the format radically. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turabian
It is bizarre, but I think it’s something to do with the academic environment of history, maybe just in the UK. All the professional journals I read (Past and Present, English History Review, etc.) and all of the books use that style, so old, maybe, but apparently still in use in some disciplines. And they try to say that history isn’t stuck in the past!
Anyone else had experience with picky citation requirements?
James.
But … … what’s against Bookends? It comes with a whole series of predefined standard formats (BibTex, MLA, Chicago, APA, two versions of Turabian, etc.); moreover, in Bookends you can create almost any ‘personal’ format you like, and as many formats as you like. And you can easily change any format into any other format. So it seems to me that Bookends should solve rather easlily most people’s citation problems (Eastern languages are of course another cup of tea).
Honestly? I guess there’s two things. First, you have to pay, and even with the student discount it comes to around £40. That’s really why I would like this free solution to work. If it doesn’t, then maybe I really will consider it.
The other reason has to do with paying for something in the US with US$. My bank recently informed me that the US government now requires that all transactions which take place in the US be provided with transaction information, and other personal information. They may retain this at leisure, and pass it on to what ever foreign government they see fit.
You may think I’m over-reacting, but the Data Protection Authority in Belgium, for instance, has already ruled that this is a breach of the Data Protection Directive. As a subject of another state, the US government is not accountable to me: it has no obligation to take my rights seriously.
Sorry to get into the politics there, but that’s another reason why, until I feel comfortable handing over my personal details to a foreign government, I won’t buy from the US.
James.
Scribe is a stand-alone filemaker database designed to track historians’ notes and data: http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/scribe/scribe3.3mac.zip
This is their latest version. The download includes a tutorial to get you started, and the Scribe site, at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason U (http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/scribe, has help documentation for the older version.
The Scribe citation export styles include Chicago and MLA but not Turabian, though you can create your own styles–probably best by adapting the Chicago style.
Another option might be Zotero, also at the CHNM site. Both programs are designed to track citations and notes/data; Zotero is web-based (firefox).
I hope this helps. Oh, they’re both free. 
henrietta, thank you very much for your recommendation, it does look really interesting, and I think I might download it soon.
Just to give an update on my dive into BibTeX, I’ve ended up custom-making my own .bst file. I used a utility called Custom Bib, which you run with latex in the terminal. It asks you a series of questions about how you want the citations to be formatted, and it generates a nice style file for use. Perfect! (If anyone’s interested in it, by the way, pm me).
There’s also a package (which I think may be installed with MacTeX anyway) called jurabib, which gives more flexibility when inserting citations into the text.
Thank you all for your help, sorry for the rant above about the US government (not aimed at anyone here, you understand), and please stick around so I can ask more questions when I get stuck!
James.
Edit: I’ve just read that jurabib is being depreciated and will be replaced by a package called biblatex, in beta at the moment.
I think this was mentioned before somewhere, but those of us ‘stuck’ with years of using EndNote and MS Word, can still use Scrivener. Just drag the citation from EndNote into the appropriate spot in Scrivener. Then, when you export your finished document to Word, just format the bibliography and voilà , there is your formatted citation.
I know there are better (and cheaper) solutions, but I am transitioning out of my dependence on MS Word, and it is taking a little longer than I thought!
Take care
R
Pretty much the standard (a slight variant on Chicago) for, particularly, undergraduate stuff in the humanities. So not that irrelevant But, agreed, people get monstrously hung up on this stuff, which, after all, is only to ensure that readers can find your sources and that your sourcs get proper attribution. It’s just willy-waggling if you ask me.
Allow me to revive a “dead” thread with the following statement: “I have no clue what has been said here. At all.”
By that I simply mean that I have purchased Scrivener as my primary editor for my upcoming (assuming I get accepted) ThM (Masters of Theology). It goes without saying that I will need to cite extensively. I have read this thread and know there’s some real power but I don’t understand what I’ve read. I’m not going to ask for an in-depth tutorial, but could someone perhaps run a short overview of how these programs you’re speaking of integrate with the Scrivener work flow? A very general overview is all I need at this point (though I’m sure I’ll get more specific as papers come due).
See a post I just wrote in the technical support area. It’s not a complete description of the process, but explains briefly how Scrivener and Bookends work together.