A simple vim integration for fzf-bibtex and bibtool for easy handling of bib(la)tex citations.

The plugin is being developed to work well with Zotero as the citation manager, using the Better Biblatex plugin to synchronize a monolithic .bib file, but it should work with other workflows as well (also see tips below).

• insert citations in pandoc markdown, latex or human-readable format using fzf
• fetch citation info in a popup window or echo it for further processing
• open pdf stored in citation with your favorite pdf reader
• insert citation directly from Zotero (slower than fzf method)

Fetch info

Insert citation

For fetching citation info bibtool is enough, otherwise you need fzf-bibtex. Make sure all the binaries (bibtool, bibtex-ls, bibtex-cite, bibtex-markdown and fzf) are on your path.

Use your favorite plugin manager.

• vim-plug

1. Add this to you .vimrc:

Plug 'junegunn/fzf'
Plug 'junegunn/fzf.vim'
Plug 'ferdinandyb/bibtexcite.vim'

2. Run :PlugInstall

Requires at least vim 8.2.0 (I don't know the minimal nvim version, and you'll probably have a better experience on vim 9).

• g:bibtexcite_bibfile

  Type: |String| or |List| of Strings

  Can be either a string or a list of strings. Values will be used as paths to .bib files to be used. Buffer specific .bib files can also be set via b:bibtexcite_bibfile. This could be useful, although see |bibtexcite-tips| for using a monolithical .bib file and then gathering all the actually used entries into a new .bib.

• :BibtexciteInsert {outputtype}

  Open an fzf search window for citations and insert them in the appropriate format. Multiple citations can be selected. It takes an optional {outputtype} argument from the following:

  - pandoc: @citekey1; citekey2
  - latex: \cite{citekey1, citekey2}
  - markdown: insert a human-readable entry
            authors (year) 'title' *journal* pages
  

  Default output type is pandoc for markdown files, latex for tex files and markdown for everything else.

• :BibtexciteShowcite[!] {citetype}

  Fetch the citation info based on the citation key the cursor is on. The {citetype} is optional, which can either be "pandoc" or "latex". If the under the cursor is not a valid key for the citation type it will echo a message saying so. LaTeX citation keys are currently not matched if the cite command spans multiple lines. Using the command with the bang will try to use as key without any sanity checks.

  Default citetype is latex for tex files, and pandoc for everything else. For latex see also the |g:bibtexcite_latex_citecommands| setting.

• :BibtexciteEchocite[!] {citetype}

  Prints the bib entry, see tips for possible use case.

  See |BibtexciteShowcite| for bang and defaults.

• :BibtexciteOpenfile[!] {citetype}

  If the citation has a file key in it, it will attempt to open the file with whatever is configured in |g:bibtexcite_openfilecommand|.

  See |BibtexciteShowcite| for bang and defaults.

• :BibtexciteZoteroInsert {citetype}

  This command requires a running Zotero instance with the Better Bibtex plugin. It will open the Zotero citation selector for picking a citation. The citetype is the same as for BibtexciteInsert, except that the markdown format will use whatever citation export format is configured in Zotero. Using Zotero directly is considerably slower, than using the fzf method, but maybe useful for the more flexible markdown citation style.

  See |BibtexciteInsert| for defaults.

• g:bibtexcite_latex_citecommands Type: |List| of String Default: ['cite', 'bibentry']

  Also works with buffer specific b:. Defines which latex commands are interpreted as a citation. The default will work with \cite{key1, key2} and \bibentry{key1, key2}.

• g:bibtexcite_openfilecommand Type: |String| or |List| of String Default: "xdg-open"

  Also works with buffer specific b:. Set the command to which file paths are passed when calling |BibtexciteOpenfile|. Defaults to xdg-open. If you want to pass additional command line arguments to your command, create a list with the parameters, e.g. ["command", "--argument", "argval"]. The file paths will be passed after these.

• g:bibtexcite_openfilesetting

  Type: |Integer| Default: 3

  Set how to behave when multiple files are present in the bibtex entry. Can also set buffer specific ones.

  • 1: Pass only first file as argument to openfilecommand.
  • 2: Pass all files as arguments.
  • 3: Open fzf selector asking for what files to open. If there's only one file, open without prompting. (default)

• g:bibtexcite_floating_window_border

  Type: |List| Default: ['|', '-', ' ', ' ', ' ', ' ']

  When set to [], window borders are disabled. The elements in the list set the horizontal, top, top-left, top-right, bottom-right and bottom-left border characters, respectively.

  If the terminal supports Unicode, you might try setting the value to ['│', '─', '╭', '╮', '╯', '╰'], to make it look nicer.

  Taken from ALE.

• g:bibtexcite_close_preview_on_insert

  Type: |Number| Default: 0

  When this option is set to 1, bibtexcite's |preview-window| will be automatically closed upon entering Insert Mode.

  Taken from ALE.

Using one monolithical .bibfile managed by Zotero or Mendeley is the fastest way to work, but you might need to include a .bib file for sharing later. In that case, if you are working with latex the following will extract the entries from the .aux file and place the in new.bib.

bibtool -x main.aux -o new.bib

If you are working with pandoc markdown the following will do the same:

grep -rPo "@\K[a-zA-Z0-9\-&_] " *.md | xargs \
    -I{} bibtool -r biblatex -X {} monolithical.bib > new.bib

Using fzf to export some records from the bibfile to a new one:

bibtex-ls ~/org/zotero.bib | fzf --multi | sed -nr 's/. \b@([a-zA-Z0-9\-\&_])/\1/p' | ansi2txt | xargs  -I{} bibtool -r biblatex -X {} ~/org/zotero.bib

You can bind vim's default help key (K) to get the help if it exists, otherwise show the citation info by putting this in your vimrc:

" Use K to show documentation in preview window.
nnoremap <silent> K :call <SID>show_documentation()<CR>

function! s:show_documentation()
  if (index(['vim','help'], &filetype) >= 0)
    execute 'h '.expand('<cword>')
  elseif (len(bibtexcite#getcitekey("pandoc")) > 1)
    call bibtexcite#showcite("pandoc")
  elseif (len(bibtexcite#getcitekey("latex")) > 1)
    call bibtexcite#showcite("latex")
  elseif (coc#rpc#ready())
    call CocActionAsync('doHover')
  else
    execute '!' . &keywordprg . " " . expand('<cword>')
  endif
endfunction

This also falls back to Coc.nvim-s show documentation, so if you are not using it remove the correspoding elseif.

This version of the function will first try to open the corresponding pdf and if there is none, then show the pop-up with the citation info.

function! myfunctions#show_documentation()
  if (index(['vim','help'], &filetype) >= 0)
    execute 'h '.expand('<cword>')
  elseif (len(bibtexcite#getfilepath("pandoc")) > 1)
    call bibtexcite#openfile("pandoc")
  elseif (len(bibtexcite#getfilepath("latex")) > 1)
    call bibtexcite#openfile("latex")
  elseif (len(bibtexcite#getcitekey("pandoc")) > 1)
    call bibtexcite#showcite("pandoc")
  elseif (len(bibtexcite#getcitekey("latex")) > 1)
    call bibtexcite#showcite("latex")
  elseif (coc#rpc#ready())
    call CocActionAsync('doHover')
  else
    execute '!' . &keywordprg . " " . expand('<cword>')
  endif
endfunction

If you want to use the abstract in a citation entry, you can either do something like this over a citekey:

:put =bibtexcite#getcite('pandoc')

or using vim-backscratch :Scratch BibtexciteEchocite to put it on a scratch buffer.

Placing it in one of the registers (e.g. for system clipboard) can done with

:let @  = bibtexcite#getcite('pandoc')

Possible mappings:

autocmd FileType markdown  nnoremap <buffer> <silent> <leader>nc :BibtexciteInsert<CR>
autocmd FileType markdown  inoremap <buffer> <silent> @@ <Esc>:BibtexciteInsert<CR>

The code for the popups was sourced from ALE, the code for the fzf chooser was pretty much taken from the fzf-bibtex README.

MIT

autoload/bibtexcite/floating_preview.vim is licensed separately in the file.