On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

On Thursday, 1 May 2014 at 13:07, John Kitchin wrote:
> I implemented some of this partially. I made it so you can specify the
> default cite link in a user variable, with a default of cite. When you type
> C-c ], this format will automatically be used. If you want to choose
> another format, type C-u C-c ] which will prompt you for a type, and then

Hi John,

I am having problems with org-ref and am obviously missing something
trivial. I downloaded the latest version yesterday (Friday). You don't
say, in the above, what function you actually bound to C-c ] but I bound
org-ref-insert-cite-link and that doesn't seem to work:

C-c ] should be bound by default to org-ref-insert-cite-link. It is defined in a hook function in line 104 of org-ref.org.

I made a custom variable to store the key-binding, but I realized it probably doesn't help, since the binding

1. C-u on it does not give me a choice of citation method

If you type C-u M-x org-ref-insert-cite-link

do you get a choice?

I just tried this on a fresh pull and it does work for me. I am not sure why this wouldn't work for you. Do you tangle the .el file from the .org file? I have this code somewhere else to build it when needed:
(if (or
     (not (file-exists-p "org-ref.el"))
     (< (float-time (nth 5 (file-attributes "org-ref.el")))
    (float-time (nth 5 (file-attributes "org-ref.org")))))
    (progn
      (org-babel-tangle-file (expand-file-name "org-ref.org" starter-kit-dir))
      (load-file (expand-file-name "org-ref.el" starter-kit-dir)))
(require 'org-ref))

That retangles the org file if the org-file is newer than the el file.

2. the link inserted "looks" like a link (it's blue) but there are
actually no [[...]] characters surrounding it.

There are no [[...]]. The links work fine without them for me. Are they necessary for some reason? I can add them, but since they do not do anything but disappear in this case, I leave them out. That is actually not totally true, if you write your link as [[cite:key][page 23]] the page 23 gets formatted in latex as \cite[page23]{key}.

What am I missing? Am I expected to type the [[]] or use C-c C-l?

I don't think you need the [[]], and you do not have to use C-c C-l. The only thing that C-c C-l offers is autocompletion on bibtex keys for the cite link (I have not figured out a way to avoid a lot of cut and paste code for the other types, and I rarely use this feature, but I am leaving it in so I do not forget how I did it ;). I guess C-c C-l might help entering the description too.

I would like to C-u C-c ], choose autocite and my refs and have your
code insert [[autocite:blah-2001,joe-2010,moe-2014]] into my org
buffer. I know I can change the default citation link type through
org-ref-default-citation-link but I want the C-u functionality.

You should be able to do all those things. The C-u functionality works independently of the default type, and it should let you get something other than the default.

Finally, looking at the code, it would appear that appending new
citations will only work for "cite:" links as the "cite:" is hard-coded
into the code?

This is correct in the version you have. The current workaround is to use C-u C-c ], and select the "A" format, which will output a leading comma and your selections. I have pushed a fix for this, that adds a requirement of dash.el and checks of the link is in a list of cite types defined in org-ref. Thanks for making me think of a solution to that!

thanks again,
eric

PS - I'm a fellow Chemical Engineer but unfortunately have not yet had
the opportunity to cite any of your papers but look forward to doing so
sometime soon using org-ref ;-)

That would be great! I hope the comments above help!

--
: Eric S Fraga (0xFFFCF67D), Emacs 24.4.50.2, Org release_8.2.6-923-g233c11