I am using JabRef 6.0-alpha.6 (because JabRef 5 did not have IEEE style support for LibreOffice), but when I use the “Electronic” entry type and write the year and month in “Optional fields”, it is not shown in the preview nor in the references/bibliography inserted into my document. I want the date to be shown in the references, it is important because I am citing a web article / web page.
Also, when I tried “Online” entry type instead, the “Optional fields” does not show at all so I could not even write a title without resorting to the BibTeX source, so that is why I am using “Electronic”.
I would really appreciate it if someone can help me. This is the first time I am using JabRef.
Can you be a little more concrete regarding the exact steps and data you used in expectation of something, what the expectation was, and how it differed from the current behavior?
Which of the optional fields did you enter the month and year into? And what was the exact BibTeX source you used, so that we can reproduce the issues fully? (You can pseudonymize the entry and provide if you want to)
And I am not sure how you couldn’t write a title after you chose an “Online” entry type, because it is not an optional but a required field - and I can access it right here:
Why do you need to resort to optional fields?
Similarly, for Electronic entry types, Date is a required field.
What I can reproduce is definitely the date not being rendered in case of electronic and article entry types. We’ll investigate and get back to you on that.
Hi @subhramit, thank you for your reply. I actually wanted to include more screenshots, but the forum website does not allow me to upload more than one per post/reply due to being a new member. The reason I was resorting to “Optional fields” was because the “Required fields” only contain “Citationkey” when using “Electronic” type, and the tab is completely absent when using “Online” type.
I will combine the images into one image, but I find this limitation to be annoying honestly.
From top to bottom: Electronic - Required fields, Electronic - Optional fields (same entry), Online (As you can see, no Required fields tab is present).
Electronic - biblatex source:
@Electronic{johndoe_2000,
month = jan,
title = {{Example For Forum}},
url = {https://example.com/example},
year = {2001},
}
More info about my environment:
OS: GNU/Linux, using X11
Installed using: .deb file from GitHub
From Help → About JabRef: Java 25.0.3, JavaFX 26.0.1+0
In general, this is an obstacle of these publication types and mapping.
TL;DR: Use url and urldate and @Online.
Fix --- which type
┌───────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Want │ Do │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Show accessed date │ Keep webpage. Set url + urldate. IEEE prints Accessed: . │
├───────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Show publication date │ Change entry type. webpage never renders issued. │
└───────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
● Types where IEEE issued macro renders date:
┌───────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CSL type │ Date shown │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ article-journal │ month + year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ report │ month + year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ paper-conference │ month + year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ bill │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ book │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ chapter │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ graphic │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ legal_case │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ legislation │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ song │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ thesis │ year │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ motion_picture │ full text date, (...) │
├───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ else branch (all other types) │ full text date --- if bibliography branch calls issued │
└───────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
I cannot find Urldate anywhere. I had to enter the biblatex manually, but then it worked, so that is manageable even if odd.
My apologies, but I cannot find where to set the publication date either, and I do not know what it is called in biblatex. I made a “Report” entry to test it, but once again “Required fields” is missing and this time “Optional fields” is missing too. And in the “General” tab, I did not find anything resembling publication date. Perhaps my expectations are incorrect?
@koppor, so according to what you say, when citing a webpage it is wrong to expect both publication date and accessed date to be shown. So the current behavior is correct (disregarding the missing tabs).
I really appreciate the help and for you taking the time to reply.
