Formatting language (FL) to design citation styles

N.B.: in-text citations and footnotes are under the control of the language formatting the output, but since they are merely the result of formatting a manuscript document with a wp, see: Manuscript formatting for relevant details

1 - General features

En: made up of:
1: field names
2: character forcing separation between field/string: "|"  Also useful to put punctuation around a group of fields as a group operator;  "not-breaking space" to link adjacent text
3: text strings, punctuation, spacing, style B I U etc.
4: options for anonymous works, pages and journals names apply to any RT, across any output context (In-text, Footonotes and Bibliography): cannot be differentiated by RT or output context; options for name vary with RT and output context;
5: `[string]` (ASCII 96) marks strings as mere text when overlapping field names, e.g. `Journal`;
6: handles singular vs plural abbreviations, e.g. p^pp.
ed.^eds if start-end pages or more authors are present
7: special characters (via dedicated pull down menu):
End of paragraph
Tab
Forced separation
Link adjacent text (non-breaking space)
Singular/plural endings

There is one citation style for full reference in the bibliography (also Export) plus one style for in-text citations and another for footnotes. The latter two are reviewed in detail in Manuscript formatting since they are the result of that specific function

The FL in En recognizes field names specific to the given RT: if you copy/paste a field from one RT to another it gets automatically translated if  applicable, if not its name is taken as a text string

EW: n.a. since the citation styles are not modificable via EW: they can only be uploaded from En desktop by site Administrator (see Administrator). Therefore, to use the formatting language must use En (N.B. In any case Composite citation styles are not supported)

2 - Selection
    1. fields
    2. subfields

3 - Add text strings in front of/after fields content (conditionally: only if there is content, unconditionally: despite the presence of content, i.e. empty fields)

4 - Distinguishes among occurrences of a repeatable field

5 - Produces tagged format output, apart from built-in export routines

can handle a repeatable field like authors field, but not keywords labelled on consecutive lines because does not handle <CR> as format specification within the same field (RIS or En export formats do not individually label kw or any other fields apart authors)

6 - Offers conditional commands (IF ... THEN ...)

7 - Upper/lowercase conversion

an example for handling author names within in-text citations

8 - Look-up tables to expand acronyms, abbreviations, replace text

puts in relation Journal's field content and the Journal list's table: a table's record is made up by an entry and three correspondent strings, most often abbreviations (which can be absent); this way you can handle periodical titles and their abbreviations

9 - Contextual record preview while designing a style

10 - Text added in styles can be language dependent for each record (e.g. months names, secondary authors abbreviations ...)
     1. text lists can be modified
     2. new lists can be added (new language)
     3. text can be present in various fields

11 -  Checking format syntax

12 - Level of difficulty of the formatting language (FL)