[Jabref-users] few suggestions

[Lars]

hi there!
first of all, i think JabRef is a great program and i enjoy using it a lot!
it makes handling bibtex files much easier, and helps me to keep the overview.

i've got some small suggestions to make it even more convenient to use:

1) i use [veryshorttitle] (selecting the title's first word) to generate the
bibtexkey. however, if the title is something like "EPIC: Explicitly
Parallel Instruction Computing", this returns 'epic:'. it would be nice to
set the word delimiter to any char different from "a-z"

2) it would be nice, if the clipboard could be used to generate new entries
(i.e. "new item by clipboard"). this might me helpful if importing entries
from citeseer, acm etc

3) i enjoy the floating search function pretty much.
however, if say 10 entries match and are put on top of the list, they aren't
sorted (at least i don't recognize any order) - maybe they could be sorted
the same way as the hole list is sorted?
btw is there a way to sort first by year, then by bibtex-key?

4) just encountered the following:
i was in the list view (without a preview) and selected an entry in the
lower half. this made the preview appear in the lower half of the window,
thus hiding the selected entry.

greetings to the jabref team

bye
lars

[Morten Omholt Alver]

Post by Lars
1) i use [veryshorttitle] (selecting the title's first word) to generate the
bibtexkey. however, if the title is something like "EPIC: Explicitly
Parallel Instruction Computing", this returns 'epic:'. it would be nice to
set the word delimiter to any char different from "a-z"

Good point - this should be easy to fix.

Post by Lars
2) it would be nice, if the clipboard could be used to generate new entries
(i.e. "new item by clipboard"). this might me helpful if importing entries
from citeseer, acm etc

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but have you
looked at the function "Import from plain text"? It lets you paste, and
then sort out the information from the text.

Post by Lars
3) i enjoy the floating search function pretty much.
however, if say 10 entries match and are put on top of the list, they aren't
sorted (at least i don't recognize any order) - maybe they could be sorted
the same way as the hole list is sorted?

Unless I'm mistaken, this is caused by the entries being sorted
according to search score, so entries with two matches will appear above
entries with one match. Since this is nonobvious, it is probably better
to give all matching entries the same score, so their order will be
given by the original sort order.

Post by Lars
btw is there a way to sort first by year, then by bibtex-key?

If you choose bibtexkey as secondary sort criterion in Preferences, you
can achieve this by clicking the table header for year.

Post by Lars
i was in the list view (without a preview) and selected an entry in the
lower half. this made the preview appear in the lower half of the window,
thus hiding the selected entry.

Yes, this can happen. I will see if we can scroll it to the center when
necessary.


--
Morten

[Lars Gesellensetter]

hi Morten,
thanks a lot for answering so fast!

Post by Morten Omholt Alver

Post by Lars
2) it would be nice, if the clipboard could be used to generate new entries
(i.e. "new item by clipboard"). this might me helpful if importing entries
from citeseer, acm etc

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but have you
looked at the function "Import from plain text"? It lets you paste, and
then sort out the information from the text.

i just checked this function - this is kind of what i was looking
for. however, it would be even easier if you didn't have to select
the entry's type, but if it was recognized automatically. at the
moment, i select 'add new entry' of the given type, switch to the
'bibtex source' panel and paste the bibtex entry there - that's
pretty fast as well.

Post by Morten Omholt Alver

Post by Lars
3) [ search function ]

Unless I'm mistaken, this is caused by the entries being sorted
according to search score, so entries with two matches will appear above
entries with one match. Since this is nonobvious, it is probably better
to give all matching entries the same score, so their order will be
given by the original sort order.

i see, this makes sense.

Post by Morten Omholt Alver

Post by Lars
btw is there a way to sort first by year, then by bibtex-key?

If you choose bibtexkey as secondary sort criterion in Preferences, you
can achieve this by clicking the table header for year.

okay, now in understand the sorting system better - i was a little
confused that one could only select secondary and ternary sort
criterion in the preferences.

regards

lars

[Morten Omholt Alver]

Post by Lars Gesellensetter
i just checked this function - this is kind of what i was looking
for. however, it would be even easier if you didn't have to select
the entry's type, but if it was recognized automatically. at the
moment, i select 'add new entry' of the given type, switch to the
'bibtex source' panel and paste the bibtex entry there - that's
pretty fast as well.

This function is for treating entries that may not be in a format that
can be imported. If the entry on your clipboard is in Bibtex format, you
should be able to paste it in directly. Just click the entry table,
making sure you are not editing a single cell, and Paste. Your Bibtex
entry should appear in the table.


Morten

[Lars]

hi morton,

Post by Morten Omholt Alver
If the entry on your clipboard is in Bibtex format, you
should be able to paste it in directly.

this was exactly what i was looking for - thanks a lot!

regards
Lars