Release 2.0.24

Today saw the release of BibSonomy 2.0.24. The release contained several smaller bug or layout fixes and internal cleanup. Apart from that, we included some infrastructure for features that we prepare for a later release. Among them are preview pictures for bookmarks and reference sections for reviews and comments.
We also tweaked the QR Code reader a little, which should now run faster.
Stay tuned for more news in the following feature of the week posts.

Happy Tagging
Stephan

Feature of the week: Linked discussions

Bonjour,

today I introduce you a fresh baked feature, the opportunity to add links to BibSonomy posts to your discussions. This is especially handy if you want to connect some of your post, like recommending a related paper.

How to do that? Easy question!

First of all, you have to go to the post you want to write a review about. For me, this is the book "Writing That Works". Then you click on the stars to start writing a discussion.

As you see, until now this publication had no review at all. That is really a pity. A good publication or web page deserves to get a good feedback, and the bad ones as well.

Okay, lets continue on our tutorial. You write your review as usual. To add a link, just use the Wikipedia syntax and frame your link with doubled square brackets.

As you see, there is no "http://" and stuff like that. We made it like this to prevent spammers from misusing this wonderful feature and append advertisements to your publications. Just use the part of the URI that begins after "http://www.bibsonomy.org/". In my case this is "url/2536259b61404196b5a7e1a95e5d17dc". A publication would have "bibtex/" instead of "url/" as prefix.

Basically, that's it. I hope you enjoy our new feature and keep in mind: Every post deserves a good feedback.

Happy discussing

Juergen

Feature of the week: Organize your publications with the help of QR Codes

Organizing your publications became easier with the help of BibSonomy. Now the workflow will even become more comfortable. We introduce a brand new experimental feature to help you putting together references with the help of QR Codes.

We implemented the possibility to automatically embed a QR Code containing the URL of the corresponding BibSonomy post into your uploaded documents which can be read and decoded by the new QR Code scanner inside the clipboard. Of course you can always choose to download your document with or without the QR Code.

After uploading a private copy of one of your collected publications you will recognize a new entry on the right side of the already familiar download link reading "including a QR Code":

The red box marks the link to click if you want BibSonomy to embed the QR Code into the copy of your document. The modified version is provided as a direct download - same as usual. 

The QR Code can be read by any QR Code reader. It contains the URL to the corresponding post. The new QR Code scanner on the clipboard page goes even further and immediately adds the corresponding post to your clipboard. Simply hold the QR code in front of your webcam such that the code appears in the designated area in the sidebar of the clipboard page.

After sucessfully decoding the QR-Code, you'll hear the "snap sound"  and the post that belongs to your publication will have been added to your clipboard.  

Workflow suggestion:

When writing a paper for your studies you search for related work and references. Create posts on BibSonomy to get a digital representation of your reference collection. Procede by printing these references with an embedded QR Code. Finally you can put together the papers you actually want to cite by scanning them with the QR Code scanner.

This gives you the opportunity to compile a sublist of your collection of publications in the blink of an eye without having to remember where the corresponding post is located.

We are currently working to make the feature even faster. Stay tuned for one of our next updates.

Happy Scanning

Philipp

PS: For the QR Code Scanner to work, you have to install the flash plugin on your system.

BibSonomy Release 2.0.23

BibSonomy now runs as version 2.0.23! This release contained a lot of clean-up with respect to the latest layout changes.

• The page is now completely scrollable again.
• Preview pictures of publications are only displayed on larger screens.
• The sidebar is no longer undisplayed on smaller screens to keep all navigation (tags, similar tags, discussion pages, etc.) available.

The non-scrollable version of BibSonomy might come back sometime as one of two or more options to choose from in your personal settings. Our efforts to redesign BibSonomy continue and we hope to see some results within the next months.

Next to these design-minded changes, the new release includes:

• An all new experimental feature: QR Codes for publications and a QR Code scanner on the clipboard.
• A first draft for referencing publications or bookmarks in discussions (reviews and comments (take a look).
• A first draft for posting publications by uploading a .pdf file.

Stay tuned for the next feature of the week posts to learn more about these new possibilities.

Happy tagging

Stephan