Dmenubib

A simple bibliography manager using dmenu

• Minimal (only require POSIX compliant shell and coreutils)
• Automatically rename and update metadata for your pdf files.

Dependency

• dmenu, exiftool, pdftotext
• grep, awk, sed, eval, tail, curl
• printf, echo, xclip / xsel

Installation

Move all the files to $PATH.

Usage

Need to set two environment variables:

• $BIB for .bib file
• $BIB_PDF_PATH for directory to store pdf files.

SER to Search BibTeX on Internet:

Two ways to search: Text or PDF.

Text:

• Type doi and directly generate bibtex
• Type text related to paper to search on Crossref, and copy doi to generate bibtex.
  • If you cannot find doi in crossref, copy any text other than doi, and then dmenubib will search on Google scholar. Copy bibtex to store it in $BIB.

PDF:

• Choose pdf file in $BIB_PDF_PATH.
• If the metadata contain doi, then generate bibtex.
• If the metadata contain title or can extract some text, then search on Crossref, and copy doi to generate bibtex.
  • If you cannot find doi in crossref, copy any text other than doi, and then dmenubib will search on Google scholar. Copy bibtex to store it in $BIB.

REF to Get BibTeX label for reference

Choose the criterion to search in $BIB. Copy the label of chosen bibtex to clipboard.

OPN to open corresponding pdf file

Choose the criterion to search in $BIB. Open the corresponding pdf in $BIB_PDF_PATH.

PDF to Manually Rename and encode metadata into pdf

Choose pdf files, and choose which bibtex entry to generate metadata.

PDF will be renamed as bibtex label, and attached with Title, Author, and doi metadata.

AUO to Automatically rename and encode metadata into pdf

Automatically go through all pdf files in $BIB_PDF_PATH, check whether correctly named. Dmenubib will generate a list of unmatched pdf files, and allow manual rename and encode metadata using PDF function.

Caveat: AUO update pdf based on pdf filename. So if you update your bibtex and want to update metadata, use PDF instead.

NTE to write notes for each reference

Store the notes for each paper as markdown file in $BIB_PDF_PATH/Notes.

Each .md file is named after the bibtex label in $BIB.