HappyRef for Obsidian

Description

This is a quick and easy citation tool intended to generate literature notes by generating notes from the digital object identifier (DOI) code using the CrossRef API.

Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Manual Installation
  • Installation via BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-updater Tool)
• Usage

Installation

Manual Installation

1. Download the latest release from Releases.
2. Extract the HappyRef folder from the zip file to your Obsidian vault's plugins folder: <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/.
   • Note: On some machines, the .obsidian folder may be hidden by default. Enable hidden folders to locate it.
3. Reload Obsidian.
4. Go to Settings -> Community plugins and enable HappyRef.

Installation via BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-updater Tool)

If you want to stay up-to-date with the latest beta releases, you can use BRAT:

1. Install the BRAT plugin in Obsidian (if you haven't already).
2. Go to Settings -> BRAT and add kevfrost/HappyRef under "Beta Plugin List".
3. Check for updates in BRAT.
4. Once the plugin is listed, enable HappyRef in the Community plugins settings.

Usage

• Install as above
• Either click on the Smiley icon or access the command palette (Ctrl+P) and start typing, then select "HappyRef Get Citation from CrossRef" to generate a new literature note. The system will prompt for a DOI, from which it will pull data into YAML frontmatter and attempt to construct a citation and pull the article's abstract.
• Data is in the frontmatter, so should be accessible via Dataview and other plugins.

Example workflow

• You've seen an article you want to capture, we're going to use this one https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42979-024-02876-4 as an example.
• Copy and paste the DOI from the page, in this case: https://doi.org/10.58594/rtest.v4i2.113
• Click on the icon or use Ctrl+P and type Happy Ref... and into the popup type in https://doi.org/10.58594/rtest.v4i2.113
• The new page will show the output

Additional features

• Changed your mind about the citation style? Go to the command palette and select Change Citation Style
• Works with either the https or plain version (https://doi.org/10.58594/rtest.v4i2.113 or 10.58594/rtest.v4i2.113) of the DOI.
• Want a different default style? Go to settings and select your option there
• Want files created somewhere different? Go to settings and select your folder
• Want a different file name schema? In settings you can choose the article title, the author or the author (year)