Icon for entry type in entry table?

Features
1

When importing an article via the browser extension, I see an icon next to the title for articles or books:
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However it would also be nice to see such an icon in the entry table, to quickly decide if the entry is a book, book chapter, article, presentation, …
Is this already possible and I just missed it in the entry table configuration, or should this one moved to the Features section?

1 Like
2

Hey, there are two options you could use to show entry type:

  • In the entry-editor it shows on the left side (yes, the location is a little odd, but there is limited space in the UI)
  • In the entry table, you could add a column for entry type via `Options > Preferences > Entry Table > Entrytype (internal)

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`

3

I know that one, but there is no option to have that string as an icon, right?

4

Sorry, not as far as I am aware.

5

Well, then I made this a feature request now :smiley:

1 Like
6

My personal opinion:

Advantage of icons:

  • could be a solution to low space and odd location in the entry editor.
  • Visually more pleasing

Disadvantage of icons:

  • Visually arbitrary; Some users may fail to discern what each symbol stands for. E.g. difference between report and article or book and inBook or inProceedings and Proceedings or Legal and Legislation will be very hard to implement, because they might all look very similar, since what we are dealing here are various different products of “text”. JabRef supports many entry types.
  • Icons will be insufficient for use cases where users implement their own “custom” entry types (which some definitely do).
7

This is correct, however my main use case is to quickly check if the given source is an article or chapter or a full book or proceeding (I typically do not even have them) without clicking on it.
As this information is already in the code it seems (in the import dialog), I thought it might be a neat idea to have it in the table as well.
I don’t know what icons the import dialog can show, but it looks like it only differentiates between articles and collections (i.e. books)?

However it is also true that the two main advantages are the space and the visual-pleasingness.
I have enabled the entrytype and have still enough space in the table.

8

I would also be in favor of this feature :slightly_smiling_face: I already use the icons for the groups and they help me a lot to navigate faster. I think there are not so many different entry types that it would take too much time to learn/understand which icon is linked to which type and often it is not the most important information about an entry but helps you to navigate faster. If somebody does not understand the icon, clicking the entry is a fast way to know what kind of entry corresponds to the icon.

For custom entry types maybe an option to link entry types to icons in the same way as with groups might be useful or in the meantime one specific item for all “other” entrytypes might be enough, too.

9

@DvP17 While not directly an icon per entry type and visible the entry table, but you can assign an icon for groups and a color.
The color is also visible in the entry table:

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You could create an automatic group for this