I’ve been using JabRef for years, and at some point it was a really useful app that I considered nearly perfect. Some years ago, it started moving into a totally wrong direction, in my opinion, losing useful functionality at the expense of getting overly complex and counterintuitive.
One thing that particularly annoys me is that it constantly keeps overwriting any preferences on every version update. Literally, I have to spend an hour every time I install an update to restore all column settings, entry types, etc. Even if I use the Export/Import buttons in the Preferences dialog, that helps only partially. Some preferences are imported incorrectly, probably because their format has changed or whatever. Today I updated to a new version and all settings related to the required/optional fields for different entry types were lost again (even after importing the preferences from a backup). It is so obvious that any settings and changes made by the user should be treated as sacred and never be overwritten.
Another problem I experience is that it is no longer possible to switch off the “preview” panel in the entry editor. I find it useless anyway, because it does not take into account the *.bst file of my LaTeX project but generates something arbitrary that has no similarity to the final output. It also slows down the entry editor because it gets updated on every keystroke. The width of this preview pane is not saved. When I reduce it in width, it gets restored to half-width on every JabRef restart.
Sorry to hear about your frustrating experience. We are always working to improve the user experience and to fix bugs. However, please also bear in mind that we are all just working in our free time at JabRef.
In general, all preferences should be migrated when starting a new version. Opening an older version afterwards however could produce issues. Could you please tell which version you are using and from which version you upgraded?
Another problem I experience is that it is no longer possible to switch off the “preview” panel in the entry editor.
You can currently choose between Preview as own Tab vs Preview in the entry editor.
I have now updated to JabRef 5.13 from some earlier version, presumably 5.10. I have these issues every time I download a new update. I did not open the earlier version, I just overwrote it with the new one. If you say that by design the settings should be migrated automatically, then it is certainly not what I am experiencing (probably since version 5.0, but maybe earlier).
The “Preview as own Tab” option which you suggest makes things even worse, because in such case the preview appears as the very first tab and is always activated when I open JabRef. If it at least appeared somewhere near the end of all tabs, it would be easier to ignore.
One more issue which I forgot to mention is that the buttons “Change entry type”, “Generate citation key”, “Cleanup Entry” etc. which appear on the left side of the entry editor are now very small, at least twice smaller than the normal size of the buttons on the toolbars above. I think this changed already quite a while ago, is this something one can fix?
There are multiple things we need to handle here. First of all, I am very interested in since when you see JabRef moving in a wrong direction. Is it since the modern UI? Is it because of JabRef using more decaults than asking? I am asking because most contributors do not understand users saying that back in the good old times everything was better. I need it to make it more tangible to work on bringing back old behavior. For each item, I need to harvest the pros and cons.
Would be nice if you shared some of your thoughts!
Hi Oliver, I have been using JabRef for at least 20 years, essentially since it exists. It always remained my 1st choice as a functional yet simple and intuitive bib file editor. I suppose that the turning point was sometime around the change from version 4 to version 5, which I would describe as feature creep. Every successful software project runs into this crisis sooner or later, when it becomes too good so that the developers get too few bug reports and an increasing number of “would be nice to…” requests from the users. Then some young “effective manager” decides it is a good idea to give the app a new look, and it starts getting worse. It is very difficult to improve a good software product. There always were a few minor things where I think JabRef could be improved, but these were not critical. Among them: confused “filter” and “search” functions or inconvenient tab order of fields in the editor panel. I just got used to how it works, even where it was suboptimal. I work on long-term projects such as books and review articles, and I value the software for the stability of it’s interface. When I install a new version, I expect to find every button at exactly the same place where it used to be. Since several years (perhaps version 5.0), this is no longer true of JabRef. I download every new update hoping that it would fix the annoying things but instead more and more annoying “features” are added, which I cannot explain. Like who came up with the idea to reduce the button size to 8 pixels, so that I can barely hit them with a mouse? Or why would anyone think it is a good idea to show the “preview” tab by default when the app starts, rather than the last tab I had open when I last closed it? It feels like some brownian motion into an unknown direction, driven by minor wishes for changes rather than by some global vision of the project development strategy. I am seriously considering downgrading to some version from 4-5 years ago.
Thank.you so much for your thoughts. We need users like you raising your voice! The best place is the issue tracker, since we focus on getting bugs fixed and small improvements done - instead of long term feature wishes discussed in the forum.
Maybe you didn’t know: JabRef is a 100% volunteer project - none of us is payed. Some even had issues with their day job because of time spent with JabRef, but that js another story. We founded a non-profit organization three years ago to get some funding. But we did not advertise that possibility that much and currently it is just enough money to cover our hosting costs.
We had some technology switch about 10 years ago, when we also offered a new entry editor. The deal was that we merge it in and let the issues raised by users priorize (and motivate!!) us to spend energy in that. The main developer of the entry editor is now focusing on academia (and JabRef online). Thus, the others need to compensate somehow. We try hard - and especially me is trying to invest time to make JabRef better again.
Please stay with us and raise issues in the GitHub tracker so that we can work on it - or ask students to work on it.
As @koppor mentioned previously, if you raise an issue we will be made aware of it and that helps us to understand the user’s needs better.
The width of this preview pane is not saved. When I reduce it in width, it gets restored to half-
width on every JabRef restart.
I am here to tell you that we resolved this issue.
. I find it useless anyway, because it does not take into account the *.bst file of my LaTeX project but generates something arbitrary that has no similarity to the final output
We also finished the integration of using BST files in the preview.
