When we write a paper, we usually face the problem to insert several or many bib entries. For certain tool such as LyX, is has a convenient dialog to insert multiple entries which supports search and ordering, as shown below
However, for general editors such as vim or winedt, or tools such as bibtex4word, we have to search and copy (or push) the bib entries one by one and sort them manually. It’s tedious and awkward. If jabref provdes a dialog similar to the one in LyX as above shown, it will be more convenient to do this. Then, users can select and sort the bib entries in the dialog and simply copy the results to the editors or tools they use.
I wrote a long text why this is difficult to achieve, but then i realised it could be quite easy
under options > preferences > external programs, Jabref is able to push to external applications and it is possible to specify an external command.
Similarly,
Create a preferences menu for citing multiple references that allows to specify the cite command. (For both biblatex and bibtex library modes, use the cites command, but take care, the syntax that Jabref would have to work with is different
Add a button in Jabref UI that triggers a menu for citing multiple entries, roughly similar to what LyX has done
It is true, with biblatex cites command, citations are printed in the order given with compressed citation labels depending on the style, therefore having the possibility to change the order from within Jabref before pushing multiple entries would be nice LyX is open source too, so having a look at it’s code might give people some ideas how it could be implemented within Jabref too
Yes, the push function is helpful. Although JabRef supports now multiple selection, it’s not convenient when the bib file contains a large number of entries. The key point is the grouping and sorting functions.
LyX is open source too, so having a look at it’s code might give people some ideas how it could be implemented within Jabref too