pubs-extract/README.md

pubs-extract

Quickly extract annotations from your pdf files with the help of the pubs bibliography manager.

Installation:

Put extract folder in your pubs plugs directory.

Add extract to your plugin list in pubs configuration file.

Usage:

pubs extract <citekeys>

This readme is a stub so far, feel free to extend it and raise a PR if you have the time. What follows is a not-very-sorted train of though on the plugin and pubs in general, to keep my thoughts in one place while I work on it.

extractor plugin:

• extracts highlights and annotations from a doc file (e.g. using PyMuPDF)
• puts those in the annotation file of a doc in a customizable format
• option to have it automatically run after a file is updated?
• needs some way to delimit where it puts stuff and user stuff is in note
  • one way is to have it look at > [17] here be extracted annotation from page seventeen annotations and put it in between
  • another, probably simpler first, is to just append missing annotations to the end of the note
• some highlights (or annotations in general) do not contain text as content
  • pymupdf can extract the content of the underlying rectangle (mostly)
  • issue is that sometimes the highlight contents are in content, sometimes a user comment instead
    • we could have a comparison function which estimates how 'close' the two text snippets are and act accordingly
• config option to map colors in annotations to meaning ('read', 'important', 'extra') in pubs
  • colors are given in very exact 0.6509979 RGB values, meaning we could once again estimate if a color is 'close enough' in distance to tag it accordingly
• make invoking the command run a query if -e option provided (or whatever) in pubs syntax and use resulting papers
  • confirm?

would also be nice in pubs, missing for me

• show command which simply displays given entry in a nice way
  • could take multiple entries but present them all in the same larger way
  • a metadata command which shows the metadata connected to an entry (e.g. show --meta)
• XDG compliance
  • a way to insert env vars into the configuration paths
  • looking in XDG_CONFIG_HOME and XDG_DATA_HOME by default
  • accepting env vars for overriding the directories
• isbn import re-enabled with -> api.paperpile.com/api/public/convert
  • example request: curl -X POST -d '{"fromIds":true,"input":"9780816530441","targetFormat":"Bibtex"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" https://api.paperpile.com/api/public/convert
  • example reponse: {"output":"@BOOK{Igoe2017-cu,\n title = \"The nature of spectacle\",\n author = \"Igoe, James\",\n publisher = \"University of Arizona Press\",\n series = \"Critical Green Engagements: Investigating the Green Economy and\n its Alternatives\",\n month = jun,\n year = 2017,\n address = \"Tucson, AZ\",\n language = \"en\"\n}\n","token":"3ca6b666-2b9d-4962-8017-a0c8f1f86bfd","tags":[],"withErrors":false}
• side-by-side command to open annotation file and document at the same time
• fzf-mode/bemenu mode to look through documents
• batch-edit? a way to quickly modify items matching a query, e.g. removing file entry for all those from year:2022 or whatever
• link related items
  • a special tag?
  • building relationships: two-way (related, e.g. same working paper), or single direction, e.g. a re-print, a compendium, etc
  • should still always be traceable from both sides
• automatically keeping a main bibtex file up-to-date
  • can be done through the export command, e.g. as a git hook when the repo is updated
• better git commit names for git plugin
• more direct linking to individual annotations
  • e.g. you have an annotation on page 17, allow opening that page from there and vice versa
  • can use e.g. existing markdown quote pattern:

    [17] To be or not to be blabla which would then open page 17 in the document

  • makes most sense as plugin probably (which also allows setting the pattern by which it finds citations in the notes)
• fuzzy matching
  • either by default, as a config setting or with the ~prefix
• why are we doing tags in metadata not in the bibtex files?
• default replacement bibkey for files which are missing part of what makes it up
  • e.g. if you use {authorname}{year} as bibkey, a file missing author would substitute with this