Great software, but unfortunately I need this old version because of its field sort order (to work with some other programs). I have the “regular” version 3.8.2 but it would be very handy to have the portable version too. Like an idiot, I did not save it when I first got 3.8.2.
Thanks for any pointers.
You can get the files of JabRef 3.8.2 here: https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/releases/tag/v3.8.2
By the way, what do you mean by “because of its field sort order”?
JabRef is helping you on a regular basis? Please, find a way of giving back.
@milleratotago I am not entirely sure what you meant with field order, but the most recent JabRef version supports changing the order and adjustment of fields in the Custom entry type dialog
mlep: Thanks for the link, which works fine. I’m a little puzzled that I can’t see a “releases” folder at GitHub - JabRef/jabref: Graphical Java application for managing BibTeX and biblatex (.bib) databases , but I’m not that experienced with GitHub.
mlep & Christoph: By “field sort order” I mean the order in which the different fields are written out to the *.bib file when it is saved. I also use some other programs to process my bib file, and these programs are somewhat dependent on the order of field output that was used in 3.8.2.
As Christoph mentioned, the field order can be customized in recent JabRef versions. So, you should be able to get the same order as in good old JabRef 3.8.2, and use JabRef most recent features.
Unfortunately I can’t get entry type customization to modify the field ordering in the save file (using the portable version of 5.6–2022-04-25–5c9d898). For example, when I look at the fields for the Article entry type, the Author field is about halfway down the list of fields. I want the author field to be first so I drag it up to the top and then click the Apply button once it is there. But the author field is not first when I save the library. Moreover, when I go back into the dialog for Customize entry types and look again at the Article entry type, the author field has returned to its original position halfway down the list. Obviously I am missing some key step, but I haven’t figured it out from the docs.
There was an issue about the sort order (Dialog "Customize Entry Types" - drag&drop not working - adding new field buggy · Issue #6338 · JabRef/jabref · GitHub), but it was solved (Allow reordering of custom entry types fields by Siedlerchr · Pull Request #6152 · JabRef/jabref · GitHub)
@Siedlerchr is this bug back or am I missing something?
Ah no, this is a different thing. The Custom entry types dialog has no effect on the order in which the fields are written per entry. It only has an effect on the entry editor.
The order in which the fields are written per entry is fixed.
See also How to specify the order of fields of each entry when saving?
This draft blog post does not mention changes after version 3.6. It is because there was no change in the file format since then? (according to @milleratotago , there were changes between version 3.8.2 and 5.7)
Maybe the format history is incomplete?
Yes, I can confirm that saving the same library to a file produces different field orders in 3.8.2 versus the portable 5.6.