The project combines the APIs of Crossref, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, OpenLibrary, Wikipedia, Google Books, and doi.org. Reference metadata is highly inconsistent, incomplete, erroneous or otherwise flawed across different sources. µBib tries to remedy this by heuristically aggregating information from different sources into one best possible result.
- Reference lookup using
DOI,ISBN,PMID,PMCID,MAG,arXiv,ACLidentifiers, and URLs (e.g. jstor) - CSL formatted citations from identifiers and BibTeX
- Free-text search for publication discovery
- Author lookup and publication retrieval
- Ad hoc citation graph traversal
- Lightweight BibTeX reference management and citation picker
ubib <identifier>ubib <URL>ubib <free-text>ubib @article{citekey,...ubib pmid:<identifier>ubib pmcid:<identifier>ubib mag:<identifier>ubib arxiv:<identifier>ubib acl:<identifier>ubib :ubib ::ubib :::,ubib :cubib :b,ubib cit,ubib lib- bangs:
!a[rticle],!b[ooks],!c[hapter],!o[ther]
- bangs:
The default input picks up on DOI, ISBN-10, ISBN-13, some URLs, pasted BibTeX references, or identifiers prefixed with pmid, pmcid, mag, arxiv or acl. If natural language is detected, a free-text search is triggered using the default API service that is configured for search.
- Press ⇧ to Quicklook preview the formatted citations
Quicklook Example
Note
Citation Styles can be configured within the workflow or the workflow configuration by providing their identifiers. Those can be retrieved via (a) Zotero, or (b) the Citation Style Language repository (alternative: Github search).
Search is available through Crossref, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex. Where available,
- Crossref allows for traversal of referenced works ⌃,
- Semantic Scholar allows for traversal of referenced works and citing works ⌥,
- OpenAlex allows for traversal of referenced works, citing works and related works ⌥⇧.
| Service | Landing-page Preview | Abstract | TL;DR Digest | Open Access | Concepts | Citation Intent & Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crossref | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ||||
| Semantic Scholar | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |
| Open Alex | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | ✔︎ | |||
| ⇧ | ⌘+L | ⌘+L | ⌘⇧ | ⌘+L | ⌘+L |
Besides discovering publications through free-text searches, it's also possible to retrieve works that have been registered under an author's name by looking up the author first (Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex).
You can refine a Crossref search by filtering the query by the author's name.
The different search modes are accessible through the ubib : entry point.
You can link your existing bibliography document in the workflow configuration, or select a location where you want to create a new one. New BibTeX references can be quickly added to the library, and managed using the built-in reference manager and citation picker.
While searching the library, you can use !bangs to filter by publication type: !a[rticle], !b[ooks], !c[hapter], !o[ther]
The subtitle field provides cues about extracted information, such as the presence of an associated abstract, keywords, or document links. These cues are represented using symbols, which may not be visible if the SF Pro font is not installed on your device. The information can be viewed in Alfred's large type utility by pressing ⌘+L.
The citation style corresponding to the pasted CSL formatted bibliographic reference can be defined in the workflow configuration.
Note
The BibTeX entries may include a keydvn, which is intended to contain the DEVONthink item link to the corresponding document.
To configure a citation, action the entry while holding down the ⌘ modifier. To chain multiple citations, use the ⌥ modifier. The citation picker supports two flavours - LaTeX and Pandoc Markdown - to accomodate various writing scenarios.
New citation styles are retrieved from the Zotero repository. When configuring styles manually, the identifier is the last path component of the Zotero URL that resolves to a valid CSL-XML document. For example, the identifier for APA 6th edition is apa-6th-edition as in https://www.zotero.org/styles/apa-6th-edition.
The display name of a CSL used in the workflow is taken from the short title of the corresponding style sheet. The short title should be declared like this: <title-short>Display Name</title-short>. By editing or adding this field, you can influence the appearance. The style sheets can be found in Data Folder > csl.
- Cormac Relf for CiteprocRsKit | CSL processing
- Max Haertwig for SwiftyBibtex | BibTeX parsing
Created by Patrick Sy | Make a Suggestion | Report an Issue | Support the Project ❤️
