Introducing Bibliography Format "Components"

Components are just like format specifications for any reference type, except that, once created, components can be used in other format specifications just like the built-in elements.

For example, most formats have a standard way of presenting publication details such as the name of the publisher, the place of publication and the year of publication.  In Chicago NB (Notes + Bibliography) it looks like this:

The rule for even this rather simple set of information get a little complicated (e.g., how do you format it if you do not know the place of publication?), and the format is used for most reference types.

In prior versions of Sente, you would have had to specify all of the rules each time you wanted this information to appear.  This was very tedious.

In the new version of Sente, you can create a component called, say, "Publication Details" and simply include that component wherever you want this information to appear.

Not only does this greatly speed up the creation of consistent formats, but should you find a problem in the definition of a component, all you need to do is to modify the component and the new version will be automatically used everywhere.

It takes some time to figure out exactly what should be a component, but the new versions of APA, MLA and Chicago make extensive use of components, so you can look at the for some ideas about how components can be used.