[Feedback] Reading List (Sidebar) Font Size

We can control the Text Size of the Sidebar, which is a tremendous help to ageing eyes, but we cannot do the same to the Reading List Sidebar.

It would be wonderful if this was possible: either by linking that Sidebar Text Size preference variable (in General > Appearance) to both or have a separate one below the sidebar preference specifically for the reading list.

The other improvement could be to have an option to wrap the file names of the reading list (perhaps even an option to specify how many lines of wrapping) since many academic papers have very long names.

Thanks for thinking to make the reading list manually sortable!

You should read our blog post on using shorter filenames.

Well, after decades of trying out every bibliography manager known to man and having had untold issues moving from one program (and OS) to another, my current workflow shuns another database for this purpose. But this has required me to put the information that would build a bibliographic citation in the name of the PDF, ePub or whatever source. For instance:

  • Book Name [Author(s)] (Publisher, Year)
  • Paper Title [Author1, Author2...] (Journal, Vol, Issue, Pages, Year)

I use Devonthink3 as an adjunct to this where I classify and group. In fact placing the Year at the end was influenced by how Devonthink3 displays long names in the file list. And I can easily search for what I am looking for in Devonthink3 or Spotlight or unix find. I do use the Devonthink3 alias as a citation shorthand (e.g. AuthorYear) and for wiki-linking purposes.

I then use a series of shell scripts (for all my reference files are indexed) to extract the data (the brackets and formatting are to make it easier for scripting) and generate bibliographic citations in any style I want. Also, because the filenames are standardised I can easily script to modify them. Want year first rather than at the end? That’s a single line of code that can be done directly at a prompt.

So in fact I have gone in the opposite direction of lengthening names to make my references portable!

But that’s just me. In any case file names are long to start with:

  • 3D-GNOME 2.0: a three-dimensional genome modeling engine for predicting structural variation-driven alterations of chromatin spatial structure in the human genome

  • Fixed-duration ibrutinib–venetoclax versus chlorambucil–obinutuzumab in previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (GLOW): 4-year follow-up from a multicentre, open-label, randomised, phase 3 trial

:smile:

In any case modifying the font size for the reading list sidebar is higher on my wish-list.