Re: Long file names in Dired

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-04-24, at 03:26, Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> wrote:

> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:
>
>> BTW, the reason I have long filenames is that I have
>> a bunch of pdfs with scientific articles, and
>> I decided that putting the author names, publication
>> year and a ttile (at least shortened) into the
>> filename might be a good idea so that I don't get
>> lost. An alternative would be e.g. an Org-mode based
>> database with links to files, but then relocating
>> them would be non-trivial.
>
> This idea is even better - use BibTeX. In a .bib file,

I. HATE. BIBTEX. WITH. A. PASSION.

(And I have reasons - basically, BibTeX is a pile of crap.  I agree that
it /is/ less unusable for writing in English exclusively, but again - it
creates /a lot/ more problems than it solves.)

That said, I like that idea, though I would use BibLaTeX (which is
a modern replacement for BibTeX, curing many - even though not all - of
its problems (the main one which it doesn't help is the format for
multiple authors), or amsrefs, which is less powerful than Bib(La)TeX,
but has a much saner format for multiple names (and is /way/ easier to
configure than Bib(La)TeX).

> write entries like this - every book, article, paper,
> etc. you read, you make an entry:
>
>     @book{cpp,
>         author    = {Bjarne Stroustrup},
>         title     = {The C++ Programming Language},
>         edition   = {Second Edition},
>         publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
>         year      = 1992,
>         ISBN      = {0-201-53992-6}
>     }
>
> In LaTeX, a reference is made with \cite, e.g.:
>
>     C++ is an extension of C, which is the system
>     programming language of choice since the early-mid
>     70s. \cite[pp. v-vi, 6, 41-42]{cpp}
>
> Then rename the file: cpp.pdf
>
> If you use Emacs to view PDFs as well, for the .bib
> file (the BibTeX mode), write a defun that takes the
> entry-around-point's name ('cpp' in this case) and
> combines it with the path where you have the PDF (all
> of them), and suddenly you are only the extention away
> from having an as-is text-editable menu to browse all
> that stuff as well.
>
> Don't thank me. I'll send an invoice :)

Haha.  But thanks, I like this idea.  (Though using Org-mode properties
might be even better than using Bib(La)TeX or amsrefs etc.)

Thanks a lot!

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University