Recipes for bibtex with ADS

Perhaps the most useful trick I have on offer is my combination of ADS database info collection with bibtex to generate references in manuscripts fully automatically.  For example, simply copying the ADS bibcode into the manuscript latex file as
         \citep{1991A&A...252..203R}
generates both the appropriate in-text citation and the appropriate reference list entry of this well-cited Rutten et al. article in the format desired by the particular publisher.   I don't have to collect the bibtex information needed by the manuscript in a "ms.bib" bibdata file; instead, I let bibtex search my full solar-physicist ADS bibfile collection for the pertinent bibliographic information.  The large number of bibfiles in this collection exceeds the bibtex file limit, so my bibtex script first concatenates them all into a large file.

Better yet, entering my alternative
         \citepads{1991A&A...252..203R}
makes the citation clickable in the resulting pdf file.  As usual, clicking on the author name jumps to the reference-list entry (which I don't like since it breaks my pdf reading), but, much better, clicking on the year in the citation now opens the corresponding ADS abstract page in the browser window for perusal and paper download.  In this manner one gets one's manuscript and the cited paper side-by-side on the screen without a page jump.  For examples see 2010arXiv-1012.1196R.  The latex definitions are:
        \usepackage{hyperref,twoopt}
        \newcommandtwoopt{\citepads}[3][][]{\href{http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/#3}{\citep[#1][#2]{#3}}}
and similarly for other natbib citation commands, as shown in my latex example for students.  These citation clickers survive in the pdf/html article production process for arXiv and A&A, but not for ApJ.

I usually find the pertinent ADS bibcode not by clicking on ADS but by searching in my parallel solar-physicist ADS abstract collection.

Wherever I am I get any article that is available as pdf file on or via ADS directly on my screen by simply copying the corresponding ADS bibcode from my solar-physicist ADS abstract collection into a command as
         > acads "1991A&A...252..203R"
in which script acads either finds the paper in my laptop if I had it already, or downloads it from ADS using remote wrapper script "getads" through institute-server script "adscode2tmp".  If there is no pdf or pdf link on ADS a browser window comes up instead with the ADS abstract page for clicking on an ArXiv preprint or publisher website when available.  This way I don't need to start vpn for the publisher licensing for any paper with a pdf clicker on ADS.  If I add an optional author name as in
         > acads "1991A&A...252..203R" rutten-rene
then acads calls getadsperauthor to put the paper into a subdir authorname instead of /tmp.  For non-ADS-pdf publications with an "eprint" entry in my authorname.txt files I use script getastrophperauthor.

I use similar linux scripts getapj and getaa that execute similar institute-server linux scripts apjcode2tmp and aadoi2tmp remotely to download new ApJ and A&A articles as specified in the ApJ and A& new-issue email alerts wherever I happen to be.  However, scripts getsp and spcode2tmp for new Solar Physics papers fail since Springer changed its link format once again.

You may define similar unix/linux/MacOS scripts addressing and running via your own institute server, using my scripts as guide.

The astronomy publishers should wake up and supply ADS bibitems themselves so that we can simply cite ADS bibcodes without having to generate bbl files or pull over the corresponding bibitems.  Especially when ADS starts providing better ones for conference papers.  And I feel that the publishers should apply my \citeads ADS-linkage trick retro-actively to all astronomy pdf's they have ever produced, so that also in these the in-text citations become linked to the corresponding ADS abstract pages.

Many publishers should wake up anyhow:  the ones that do not supply direct pdf links on ADS with silent IP subscription verification as ApJ and A&A do (the F linkage symbol in the ADS article lists).   These silly publishers include Springer (e.g. Solar Physics), SPIE, Nature, Science, etc.  They are so proud of their own websites that they supply only html links to ADS and want you to get their recent articles through these.  Endless browser clicking instead of one-stop shopping.  I almost never take the trouble.  Worse, I usually work at home where a silly-publisher IP check doesn't work whereas my script acads still opens any pdf-link-on-ADS article browser-free on my screen.  I might instead use VPN or hunt silly-publisher articles through a university portal, but I find the tedious extra page opening and non-ADS article searching nearly always too much work and will rather use the "eprint" ArXiv code in my authorname.txt file to instead get the preprint, if it exists on ArXiv, with script getastrophperauthor.  Upshot:  I download and read ApJ and A&A articles nearly daily via their silent-check pdf links on ADS, but recent silly-publisher html-only-on-ADS articles only when desperately urgent.  (Printed editions:  I haven't seen one for years; since the same holds for my colleagues, our large physical physics & astronomy library was stored in a distant building.  Do you ever see students with a paper journal in their hands?   Or with a book other than mandatory?)   ADS is the greatest blessing to astronomers since the godsent pocket calculator, but many astronomy publishers seem not aware of its impact on their impact.  No pdf link on ADS means non-published.

My ADS scripts are available here.