aliquote.org

August 8, 2026

Thing is: BibDesk insists in transforming your clean BibTeX file into a mess. I already use bibclean to format my database:

if executable("bibclean")
  setlocal formatprg=bibclean\ -align-equals\ -brace-protect\ -delete-empty-values\ -fix-accents\ -quiet
endif

Now, I need to resort to bibtool to remove extra stuff added by BibDesk on the fly:

nnoremap <silent> <buffer> g= :!bibtool -q -s -r ~/Documents/notes/clean-bibdesk.rc % -o %<cr>

In my case, clean-bibdesk.rc actually reads:

delete.field { bdsk-file-1 }
rename.field { bdsk-url-1=url }
key.generation = off
preserve.key.case = on
preserve.keys = on
print.line.length = 9999999

I guess it will evolve over time with the new surprises Bibdesk has in store for me.