JabRef allows Custom Entry Tabs and Entry fields to be created.
For many years I have used a Custom Tab named “Citations”, which holds the Custom Fields “timescited” (holding a single numerical value), and “citedby” which holds a list of Citationkeys. Up to and including JabRef 5.8, the contents of the “citedby” field were wrapped by default. However, from JabRef 5.9 onwards the “citedby” contents are not wrapped.
See the attached screenshots taken from JabRef 5.8
Within the Preferences menu of JabRef 5.13 it is possible to use the Custom Entry Type dialog to specify whether or not Required and Optional Fields for various standard Entry Types (Article, Book etc) should be Multiline, but I cannot find a setting within the JabRef Preferences menus that allows me to turn on wrapping for Custom Entry Fields, which can apply to any Entry Type.
Is there a way that I can turn on line wrapping for Custom Entry Fields?
If not, then would it not be better to make line wrapping the default action for all such fields, as I can see no advantage in preventing the contents of these fields from wrapping?
In the custom Entry types, you should add the field to all relevant entry types.
Set the field to multiline for the entry type, e.g. article. Save and reopen custom entry types, and it will be set to multiline for all entry types.
Thanks for this very helpful suggested workaround. It does indeed allow the “citedby” field to be wrapped, and I have used it with one small change to your suggestion, which I think makes it more convenient.
Specifically, I have not added the “citedby” field to all relevant Entry Types. but only added it to the Entry Type “Unpublished” (which I almost never use), and there set it to “Multiline”.
This means that the “citedby” field in my Custom Tab “Citations” is automatically wrapped for all entry types, as I wanted, but avoids having the “citedby” field appear in either the Required or the Optional Tabs (both of which are already rather cluttered), for any Entry Type except “Unpublished”.
Finally, could you explain why treating all non-standard fields as multi-line fields was an unwanted behavior? As I see it, this implies that many users preferred to lose sight of some of the contents of non-standard fields when that content was more than a few characters long, and I find this surprising.
I’ve realized that there is a slightly cleaner way of implementing the workaround I described in my previous message.
Instead of modifying a standard Entry Type, such as “Unpublished”, it is better to create an entirely new Entry Type in the Custom Entry Types dialog. In the screenshot below, I have named this new Entry Type “Custom1”, but any valid name that doesn’t clash with an existing Entry Type would do. Then simply add the “citedby” field to the Custom1 entry type, and set it to “Multiline”.
As before, the “citedby” field is then automatically wrapped for all entry types, and it avoids having the “citedby” field appear in either the Required or the Optional Tabs for any entry type except “Custom1”.
