CiteEase: Open-Source Citation Management App

Welcome to CiteEase, an open-source Progressive Web App (PWA) for managing citations and collaborating on bibliographies.

Table of Contents

• What is CiteEase?
• Key Features
• Upcoming Features (to-do)
• Getting Started
• Contributing
• Reporting Issues
• Testing
• License
• Contact
• Acknowledgments

What is CiteEase?

CiteEase is a powerful and user-friendly open-source citation management app designed for students, researchers, and anyone who values efficiency and organization.

Key Features

• Unlimited Usage: No sign-in required for most functionalities, unless you want to sync data across devices, restore passwords, and collaborate.
• Offline Functionality: Work on your bibliographies seamlessly, even without an internet connection.
• Drag-and-Drop Everywhere: Effortlessly interact with your citations using intuitive drag-and-drop actions. Add references to your Word doc, delete unwanted entries, import citations or bibliographies, and export your data with a simple drag-and-drop.
• Open-Source Availability: CiteEase is open-source, with code freely available for anyone to view, modify, and share. This allows for transparency and customization to your needs.
• Advanced Citation Generation:
  • Choose the reference type (book, article, webpage, etc.) from a dedicated menu for easier citation creation.
  • Import citations from various file formats (JSON, LaTeX) to seamlessly integrate existing bibliographies.
  • Enter multiple unique identifiers (URLs, DOIs, ISBNs, PMIDs, PMCIDs) at once. CiteEase will intelligently retrieve data and generate citations for each, minimizing manual entry.
• Advanced Citation Management:
  • Over 10,000 citation styles supported, with the ability to add custom CSL files for even more flexibility.
  • Manage citations with ease: add, edit, move, copy, delete, and export them in various formats (CSL, BibTeX, BibLaTeX, BibTXT, JSON, Word, PDF).
  • Search, filter, group by, and sort your citations for effortless organization.
• Collaboration Features:
  • Open collaboration on bibliographies using a unique identifier and password.
  • Collaborate with others in real-time, allowing everyone to add, modify, or delete citations within a shared bibliography.

Upcoming Features (to-do)

• Integration with popular reference managers (Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote).
• Version control to track changes and revert to previous versions (local for privacy).
• Advanced search with filters and Boolean operators for specific fields.
• CSL file manager to create, customize, and manage citation styles (including update checks and adding new ones).
• Raw JSON Entry mode for advanced users to input citation data directly into predefined JSON structures (e.g., CSL-JSON, BibJSON).
• Custom Source Templates feature allowing users to create, export, and import personalized citation templates beyond the standard options (book, webpage, journal article, etc.).

Getting Started

To get up and running with CiteEase, follow the instructions in our GETTING_STARTED.md file.

Contributing

We actively welcome contributions from the community! To get started, please see our CONTRIBUTING.md file and use the provided Pull Request Template when submitting changes.

Reporting Issues

If you encounter any issues or have suggestions for new features, you can use the following templates:

• For bug reports, please open a bug issue and provide as much detail as possible.
• For feature requests, please open a feature request and describe your idea and its use case.

Alternatively, you can visit our Discussions page for questions, ideas, or general support.

Testing

Rigorous testing is essential for ensuring the quality and stability of any application. We acknowledge its importance and plan to incorporate a comprehensive testing suite in the future. Currently, however, automated testing is not actively implemented in this project.

License

CiteEase is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Contact

For inquiries or more information, you can reach out to us at discontinuedlabs@gmail.com.

Acknowledgments

CiteEase utilizes CSL style files from Citation Style Language Styles and XML locales files from Citation Style Language Locales, both of which are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. We extend our gratitude to these projects for providing essential resources that enhance the functionality and versatility of CiteEase.

We hope you find CiteEase to be a valuable tool for your research endeavors!