Is `RefManageR` the new `citr` package in R?

Question

I konw that's kind of a meta question but here it is: Is RefManageR the new citr package in R?

I am using citr since 1 year now and I just realized that it is not maintained on the CRAN anymore (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/citr/index.html). Otherwise, they refer to the package RefManageR (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RefManageR/index.html).

I am using a bookdown project to compile pdf/html/docx document from Markdown and would like to know if it is compatible

Answer 1

I think they have different purposes:

1. RefManageR helps with handling .bib files (e.g. if you want to read into R your bibliography collection taken from Zotero). Something like:

bib_path <- here::here ("my_folder", "my_bibliography.bib")
# as list
mybib <- RefManageR::ReadBib(bib_path, check = FALSE ) 

2. While citr, which is now only available as development version, is a very handy Rstudio Addin that allows you to easily enter a bibliography item in your Bookdown/RMarkdown document - drawing from the .bib file in your environment as shown here.