RefDB / News: Recent posts

Version 0.9.6 of RefDB, a reference database and bibliography tool, is now available. There were lots of enhancements (too many to list them here). In addition, the first complete implementation of an Emacs interface is also ready for download.

Among tons of bugfixes and feature enhancements, this release adds support for an embedded database engine as an alternative to MySQL or PostgreSQL. This offers true zero-administration experience in terms of the database backend while supporting most of the functionality that an external database server offers.

RefDB underwent some major changes, the most prominent of which is the integration of a database abstraction layer. This adds support for PostgreSQL including transactions and various character encodings.
Other noteworthy changes: automatic keyword scan, a first shot at a MARC import filter, support for citation keys, a TEI XML backend, and plenty of minor changes.

Markus Pilzecker kindly provided a set of RPMs. RefDB was wrapped into several packages for both the Intel and Sparc platforms. Please make sure to read refdb.rpm.INSTALL which explains the purpose and usage of these packages.

Regrettably the binaries still contain a bug that can cause refdbib to segfault. The bug is fixed in CVS and will be gone in the next release. The current workaround is to make do without the refdbib configuration file by using the -q command line option. You'll then have to provide all options on the command line.

0.8.5a is a bugfix release for 0.8.5 because two bugs showed up right *after* releasing 0.8.5 (as usual).

Lots of bugfixes, some new features - check out the details in the release notes. No Cygwin binaries at this time as I don't have access to a Windoze box currently.

Well, almost. configure and the Makefiles were improved to allow the automatic customization and installation of DTDs, DSSSL and XSL stylesheets, and CGI templates for the first time. The scripts will also be customized with your local paths as necessary. This should take out most of the hassle of the installation. A few more feature enhancements and bugfixes went into this release, please read the notes and the changelog for this release for the details.

Version 0.8.2 adds support for DocBook and TEI XML files, textual citations, and improvements to the CiteStyle DTD.

Version 0.8.0 tries to integrate smoothly into the LaTeX/BibTeX system. Certainly not all kinks are worked out yet, but this is at least a start.
There are two new import filters for DocBook and BibTeX, as well as a new Emacs major mode for RIS files.
As always, a few bugs were fixed as well.

The new version 0.7.0 adds a couple of improvements. The most "visible" change is the addition of a CGI-based web interface for the common refdbc tasks. Finally a pointy-clicky interface for the command-line haters!

Version 0.6.0 comes with a bunch of new security features and a simplified user management. The client-server dialog protocol had to be changed, so old clients won't work with the new application server and vice versa. Precompiled Cygwin binaries are available as well.

This is just a quick update to the 0.5.1 release. A few leftover debug messages were removed. More importantly, a new test was added to acinclude.m4 to properly test for a working mkfifo(). The latest Cygwin versions implement a nonfunctional mkfifo stub that confused the default autoconf test.

Version 0.5.1 is mainly a bugfix release with a few minor feature enhancements.

Today I uploaded the first release of the RefDB package. Try it out and have fun.