I think it would be interesting to have a panel where last actions are displayed and commands would allow to undo or redo actions. Like the feature in QGIS 12.3. Editing — QGIS Documentation documentation .
Would it be possible?
In my case, I currently consolidate a shared SQL database for my office. I had the case when I used the “Find and Replace” tool to modify “Comment” for several selected entries. Yet, I forgot to check the “Limit to Selected Entries” box, hence disseminating the modification to the whole database. This feature would be useful to easily correct this error.
If it’s just a .bib file, you can compare it with Meld or another diff tool, but since you are using a SQL database to store the entries, maybe this would need to be captured explicitly. Maybe it would already be sufficient to document any changes to the database in the logs? Screenspace is scarce and a dedicated undo/redo panel seems like a lot of effort.
Thanks @ThiloteE for the answer. I understand screenspace is scarce, hence adding a dedicated undo/redo panel seems unadapted.
In fact, I think I’m more interested in easily undo last modifications made to multiple references than having a history of what happened. But in my use case presented above, the current “Undo” action only displayed a “Nothing to undo” message, hence I was thinking of a more explicit feature.
Hi, thanks for asking. This feature would defenitivly nice, yet currently not very high on our priority list, as it needs some larger refactoring of the codebase. We are currently very busy with a major architectural overhaul in the machine room of jabref, so there are not many new features to see in the gui in the next release, but the process allows us to make jabref more accessible and more useful for maybe many new users (like github actions, command line utility, library to work with citations etc.).
We promise, we wont forget to work on the gui and will take your proposal to our backlog. But as we all are working on jabref only in our free time after our day job, this will take some more time.
I apologize for only thinking of this now: JabRef automatically creates backups. You can find the location where they are stored in the docs: Automatic Backup (.sav and .bak) and Autosave | JabRef. Maybe you will find some with your data still intact. Unfortunately, I have no experience with using a SQL database in combination with JabRef and hope they are created regardless.
Yes, I checked the backup and autosave files before. But I only saw files from local database, so I concluded that this feature doesn’t work with a SQL database.
Concerning the disseminated modification, it’s ok now. I closed Jabref during the operation and manually corrected the modified references.
It’s worth mentioning that other reference managers also lack ‘undo’ functionality, especially for mass changes, and I think this is because of database operation. In JabRef preferences, I keep autosave disabled. This way, I can use manual saves as a sort of “restore” point, but I am still covered by automatic backups in the event of an unexpected shutdown. However, I am not sure if this would work with local libraries and database synchronization.
Thanks for your message @ryan-carpenter. Concerning ‘Create backup’ Jabref option, it does not work with my office shared SQL database, only with local libraries. So we have created a daily automatic backup outside Jabref ecosystem.
. Thanks for your answer