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