Polyanthea - Bibliography manager named after the Polyanthea.

Before doing anything, copy config.def.g to config.go and configure Polyanthea. Then, create the database:

polyanthea init

Now you want to add references, from BibTeX, CSl-JSON, ISBN, DOI...

polyanthea add bibtex mybibliography.bib
polyanthea add json alotofbooks.json
polyanthea add isbn 978-2-840066-234-1
polyanthea add doi 10.3406/item.2003.1247

Of course, the data reach by these method will likely be incorrect, so you can add by writing it by yourself, or correct some fields afterwards:

polyanthea add template book
polyanthea update title id:antin2002

Here you'll likely want to read things and takes notes to edit an entry's note file, you can:

polyanthea # use the TUI and press <Enter> on an entry (recommended)
polyanthea edit # pick an entry with FZF

Each time you edit a note, its content is indexed and parsed: some lines will be classified as concepts, other as quotes, other as heading -- and everything else as commentary.

a concept = and its definition, with a locator p.32
> a wonderful quote, with a page number in parenthesis (32)
(i hate this book -- lines in parenthesis are not indexed)
# a heading, this is chapter 3 about cool stuff
this is a simple commentary of the text you're reading, e.g. a summary

> a quote, with *tags*, because line starting with comma are tags
,coolquotes ,sociology ,philosophy-of-science

The parsing is 100% line-based. Every line becomes an object in the database, with a specific class. Empty lines are ignored.

Now, let's say you've some hundred of books and articles. You probable want to search in all these notes, all these ideas, all these cool quotes. For this, you can use plain-text search and filters. Plain-text search searches in entries titles, and in notes content. Filters are more powerfull, you can filters using CSL variables (author, publisher-place, etc.), or tags, or even class, using AND, OR and NOT boolean operators:

author:antin,perec,quintane,pireyre
author:kaplan or publisher:pol
publisher:pol and not ,poetry ,unread
art world =entry
=quote sky
=concept lexical

There's also a shortcut for authors, which is @:

@becker art world

Searching will not only show you entries, but all objects. You will see a list of entries, people (authors, translators, editors), of quotes, of concepts and definitions, of heading and commentary, and even tags, and classes. If you press <enter> when an entry is selected, you'll edit its note. If you're on a line object (concept, quote...), you'll edit the note at this specific line. If you're on a person, you'll edit the attached notes, because there's also notes for people. If you're on a tag or a class, this will trigger a new search with this tag or class added as a condition.

There is no collection in Polyanthea, only tags. But tags are actually powerfull enough, and Polyanthea tags are a bit like classes: a tag can be a subtag of another tag. You define tags tree (hierarchy) into a file named .polyanthea.tags:

fiction
 science-fiction = sf
 romance
 fantasy
humanities
 digital-humanities = dh
 philosophy = philo
  philosophy-of-mind
  philosophy-of-language
 social-sciences
  sociology
  anthropology
computing
 minimal-computing
 linux
 databases = db
  sql
   sqlite

With this file, tag sf will behave just like science-fiction, and if you add tag sf to an entry, it will considered to have the tag fiction as well.

,, ## word vectors, FTS5 ,, ,, Polyanthea not only tries to offer ways to find what you want, but also to make new links

Installation

git clone https://github.com/thjbdvlt/polyanthea polyanthea

# Here, you should configure polyanthea through "config.go" file.
make # Build polyanthea
sudo make install # Install polyanthea
pipx install . # Install small command line python programs for "add" command

In addition to the executable polyanthea (installed in /usr/bin), four other executables (python) are installed using pipx:

• csljson-update: Builds unique ids for a csl-json.
• fetchref: Get a bibtex reference from a DOI or ISBN.

Some commands are not available from the TUI but only from the command line:

The list command shows (pretty-print) the information of the chosen bibliography entries. (If no filter option is selected, it displays the entire bibliography. Unlike other options that use filters, there is no selection of an entry with fzf: the list command displays all entries that match the filters.)

polyanthea list author:antin

The json command works like list, but the entries are displayed in csl-json format.

polyanthea json author:rédaction .inquiry

[
    {
        "id": "larédaction2012",
        "type": "book",
        "title": "Les Berthier: portraits statistiques",
        "author": [{"literal": "La Rédaction"}],
        "issued": {"date-parts": [[2012]]},
        "publisher": "Questions théoriques",
        "title-short": "Les Berthier"
    }
]

Config

Configuration is done through config/config.go Thus, yo need to compile the software in order to changes to apply.

Completion (Bash)

The completion script (bash) allows for automatic completion of actions, options, tags, and fields (variables). To use it, source it e.g. in your .bashrc.

dependencies

• Go
• SQLite3
• fzf.

For the importation to the database in the python command line tools:

• orjson

To get references from doi/isbn:

• isbntools
• isbnlib

Correction, structuring, formatting, and conversion from bibtex to csl-json:

• pandoc