I have 19 entries in my complete database. ALL of them are displayed all the time no matter which group I select. I only want to see the entries related to the currently selected groups. In the groups tree there is a number less then 19 in brackets behind each group name!
Depending on the selected group the entries have different colors. Sometimes they are green sometimes white sometimes gray. Sometimes only the first column (the number #) change its color. I don’t understand the meaning of that.
I have 19 entries in my complete database. ALL of them are displayed all
the time no matter which group I select. I only want to see the entries
related to the currently selected groups. In the groups tree there is a
number less then 19 in brackets behind each group name!
Depending on the selected group the entries have different colors.
Sometimes they are green sometimes white sometimes gray. Sometimes only
the first column (the number #) change its color. I don’t understand the
meaning of that.
Look at the Options menu under the Preferences sub-menu. Appearance shows
the colors and the Groups sub-menu (and others) will allow you to configure
it to your preferences.
The green entries are the recently imported ones. You can remove the marking by right-clicking them and select “Unmark entry” (there is also a preference option which disables “marking on import”).
Entries matched by the selected group are white
By default, entries which don’t belong to the selected group are grayed-out.
You can change this and hide not-matched entries using the option “Hide non-hits” under the group settings ( gear-wheel symbol in the groups pane)
Dear Tobias,
thank you very much for your detailed explanations! You gals and guys in the forum very kind and helpful. But I don’t want to waste your (freetime) ressources. I was looking in the docs about my problem but couldn’t find something. Maybe I missed it?
I have to thnk about a tutorial/howto for the future when I am more comfortable with JabRef. Most of the articles about JabRef are focusing to much on the bib-file thing and the concept behind it instead of telling how to use JabRef in real use cases most efficient.
“marking on import”
This is a interesting behaviour. I saw a option that all markes will gone when importing new entries. But I think the (import) marks should gone after closing (re-open) the database, too. What do you think? Should I open a FeauterReqeust for that?
“Hide non-hits”
Ah, I haven’t looked in that menu. I was looking in the “Preferences” where there is no equivalent for that. In my opinion as a software designer this is a bug. All available options in the groups pane should be available in the “Preferences” (maybe under “Groups”), too.
Maybe I was clicking to much around in the past: Is this gray-out-behaviour default? If so this should be overthink, too. IMO this isn’t a behaviour a “normal user” (comming from other literatur software) would expect. In combination with the rainbow-colors it totaly confuse a user.
I think you are right, JabRef is missing a “get started” tutorial that introduces the basic concepts without diving too deep. For example, the help pages about groups goes into every possible detail about the different kinds of groups, but the basic interaction is not explained (or only sketched). It would be really really nice if you could contribute such a tutorial! If you want, you can just start writing and the team will add remarks (or correct small mistakes).
You are right, the settings should be under preferences and not in the groups dialog. I will change this accordingly while reworking the groups interface. Thanks for the hint! (Its always valuable to get the user-perspective!)
Thank you very much for your help. The way you tread new users here is very outstanding/excellent (ger: “herausragend”). I mentioned that the first time when I read about the detailed “how to contribute” section on your GitHub page. Is there somewhere a text that describe the “nature” of your project? Who are the developers? Is there money in the background or other types of support for the project? Or do you all do that in your freetime?
I will put this “get started” think on my (far away ) TODO.
I have JabRef 4.3.1. Many times I have “All entries” group selected and still many entries are grayed out. (And the Search field is empty too) Is this a bug or does it mean something?
) TODO.