Today is my usual “Jabref” day, and in trying to add a reference to a treatment for “diabetic neuropathy” . . . I couldn’t find my “diabetes” group . . . so then I tried to add a “neuropathy” group, but in doing that Jabref opened to that group . . . losing the highlight on the citation I was trying to add to various groups . . . .
While I was fiddling with that I then noticed that “diabetes” was now a “sub-group” to “Addiction/Chemical dependency” group . . . ??? Then when I was trying to right-click on a group to get the drop down menu to “add citation to group” I noticed that that was also “dragging” the group name line around . . . and that made another group into a sub-group . . . which I was able to drag that sub-group back over another group to become again, it’s own group.
But, in the case of the “Diabetes” group I can’t seem to drag it out of the “Addiction” group . . . multiple ways of trying, I drag it over Addiction and try to drop it and it flies back to its place of submission??? Any way to get “Diabetes” and its citations back in the lime light as a regular group?
I’m assuming some inadvertent self-sabotage/right-click move must have made this change, but it isn’t responding to my attempts to self-correct it.
see screenshot, the Addiction group has a carat off to the right, which must have been “up” when I was scrolling through the group list looking for “Diabetes” and then somehow I must have flipped it “down” which then showed the “sub-group” . . . .
Hey @esteelpaz What version of JabRef is this? You can find this information under “Help>About JabRef”.
To solve your problem (in JabRef 6.0alpha3), you can left-click and drag “Diabetes, etc.” between the “Covid/sequelae/etc” and “Addiction/chemical dependency” groups, which will turn the sub-level group “Diabetes, etc.” into a top-level group. Conversely, to turn a group into a sub-group is done by draging a group on top of the corresponding top-level group.
I suppose we could add this information to the JabRef user documenation about groups. Up till now we deemed this as something self evident or something that could be found out by trial and error.
I can confirm your finding that drag’n’drop also works when right-clicking. Not sure, if we should classify this as a bug or if your mouse or mouse movement is just a tiny bit erratic.
Thanks for the reply . . . not sure which version I have, but I don’t think I have clicked up to “6” yet. I was starting to experience “artifacts” in my recent uses of Jabref, so I was starting to think it might be time to upgrade . . . and then this “disappearing or hidden sub-groups” thing happened upon me.
It may or may not be self-evident to the end user, I’m the type that will just start using an app in the olde “install first, then read instruction” gambit.
But, I might say, “This could be a bug,” because in spite of overall “erratic” behaviors being emoted, Jabref is installed on a laptop, but I am using a mouse with mouse pad, for precision purposes. But, in the >right-click >drop down menu scroll down or “mouse down” to the “add selection to group” . . . that might be also “dragging the group” into a sub-group, at the same time. With the drop down menu opened over the group I might not have noticed this happening?? And then yesterday it happened again, while doing my usual moves while adding a citation and then flagging it for several groups, etc.
Not that there is “no connection” between “Addiction” and “Diabetes” . . . but I wouldn’t have consciously made that choice. The other problem that might indicate a possible bug is that I did try to right & left click the “Diabetes” sub-group around to try different ways to get it to return to a group, as did work with the other one; in the Diabetes group dragging it around above and below other items didn’t move it, the image of the line bounced back to where it was . . . hence my cry for help hear.
I’m on another machine right now, when I get the Jabref laptop booted up I’ll find the version and post it hear. It was an “alpha” of some iteration I believe, but I don’t think it is “current” latest available.
OK, following this advice did return the sub-group to its own group. So, thanks kindly that is “solved.”
The question on the “why” it became a sub-group might be open for discussion.
The other question on why dragging it around last night in multiple methods didn’t work, is another question, but might be on “erratic pilot behavior”???
