Critique of v5.0

Help
1

Dear developers, I use Jabref for a number of years and was quite happy with it and how it integrated into my workflow, using it as literature databank for storing and internal recherche.
Version 5.0 first forced me to upgrade MacOS to Catalina, and then turned out to be unusable (now had to convert back to v3.0 und look for alternatives again):

  • in the bibtex view it seems impossible to copy words and lines at will, as always the entire entry will be copied. I frequently need bits and pieces to paste elsewhere. Not possible anymore.
  • the search function got extremely slow, often stalls after each letter
  • search does not work anymore for Umlauts and other special symbols like searching for ‘M{"u}ller’ [typing ‘Müller’ neither works as “ü” input via long-pressing “u” doesnt work; typing “Müller” elsewhere and then copying over into Jabref works
  • going back to some version 4.x does not work anymore as old preferences and entry table seem destroyed
    Somehow, I hope these are bugs that will be fixed and not new features that will stay.
    best
    umuen
2

Dear Umuen,
Thank you for your feedback.
Some of your issues may have already been solved, like the slow search (https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues/6044). Could you try the development version (https://builds.jabref.org/master/)?
You may open new issues for the persisting ones (https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues).

3

With a recent version of the development version, the going back to 4.x is no longer a problem, as the preferences were made compatible again.

4

I can confirm that in current JabRef (5.6) it is possible to copy words and lines at will.
5.7 will feature the new “automatic entry editor”, which will allow you to more easily edit, copy, move, swap and rename entry content.