Existing users, 
There are three main choices on the Mac:
1. EndNote. It has been around the longest and is rock-solid, but as people have noted below, there have been few changes since EndNote 7 except Unicode compatibility (which is admittedly a big database modification).
2. Bookends. It has come a long way in version 8 and has some neat features such as a built-in web server for sharing references. It has implemented smart and fixed lists, which is nice. But if you have experience with well-designed Carbon and Cocoa OS X apps and you use Bookends for more than 5 minutes, you realize that this just doesn't work like other OS X apps. Its interface is quirky (selection, drag and drop, and contextual menus aren't fully developed as in some other apps), and its UI is relatively ugly (at least to this user). It may be more susceptible to database corruption than EndNote.
3. Sente. It's the app with the most promising UI and design, and it has come a long way since version 2.0, but it still needs a lot of work. If you like to scan your papers and format bibliographies automatically, I understand that it leaves a lot to be desired. It is also the most reasonably priced app of the three, at least for edu customers.
Version:
the current situation of bibliography management programs
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: bernie90210 Wednesday, July 06 2005 @ 01:45 PM PDT
Product Platform:
Used Product For: Over One Year
Recommend Product: YES
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Comments
Endnote has declined drastically - jdien
Check the comments under Endnote. It's done worse than just stagnate. Version 8 was so full of bugs it is unusable. They issued two patches for the Windows version but left the Mac users in the cold. Now they have version 9 out. Would you buy it given what happened with version 8?Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:54 PM PDT
Endnote has declined drastically - jdien
Check the comments under Endnote. It's done worse than just stagnate. Version 8 was so full of bugs it is unusable. They issued two patches for the Windows version but left the Mac users in the cold. Now they have version 9 out. Would you buy it given what happened with version 8?Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:59 PM PDT
Sorry! - jdien
Ran into some sort of browser glitch and it's not letting me delete the extra posts.Monday, July 11 2005 @ 03:08 PM PDT
database corruption? - jdien
What makes you say Bookends might suffer from database corruption issues? I haven't seen any comments to this effect. Do you have evidence for this or is this just speculation? It's a serious charge!Monday, July 11 2005 @ 03:10 PM PDT
database corruption? - bernie90210
Every database has corruption issues, but I experienced them after only a little bit of testing. Check out the Bookends forum for others.Thursday, July 14 2005 @ 07:49 AM PDT
the current situation of bibliography management programs - bernie90210
Here are some other comments about EndNote:1. It has a *lot* more fields than Bookends
2. The same database in Bookends is easily six times larger than the corresponding database in EndNote
3. EndNote is the only program that directly supports syncing with the Palm. EN's solution needs further development, but it's still incredibly useful.
Friday, July 15 2005 @ 02:17 AM PDT
the current situation of bibliography management programs - som1
I agree with your that EN does have incredibly cool features BUT in my experience it has been so buggy on Mac that I have stopped using it. Last time I used it was v. 7 in conjunction with Word 10.x. At the time, they bit each other in some way, usually resulting in Word crashing or EN going into permanent beachball mode. How come the developer didn't get its product (EN) to even work properly in the most widely used combination (MS Word and EN)? I tried to get help using customer support. Guess what... I was told to wait for an update which arrived like half a year later in the form of a full version update to 8.0. What a joke. Don't even start blaming it on Word. The Mac developer team at Microsoft has been very active putting out updates, unlike the Endnote developer, who to me seems to be a single freelance Mac programmer in this case.Nuff said.
Tuesday, August 09 2005 @ 10:43 PM PDT
eh? - heirtzler
I am surprised to see someone making general statements that the three progs are comparable. They clearly are not (although I don't know Senate).While Endnote has better functionality (see my previous comments), in terms of user support & Mac updates, it is awful.
Bookends does not have those limitations at all, although the functionality leaves something to be desired.
It would be much easier for the BE author to add some of the correct functionality than for EN/Mac to overcome an unhelpful corporate culture.
Sunday, January 22 2006 @ 03:21 PM PST
Endnote has declined drastically - jdien
Check the comments under Endnote. It's done worse than just stagnate. Version 8 was so full of bugs it is unuseable. They issued two patches for the Windows version but left the Mac users in the cold. Now they have version 9 out. Would you buy it given what happened with version 8?Reply to This
Monday, July 11 2005 @ 02:54 PM PDT