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Inconsistent casing of custom field names
JabRef version
5.11 (latest release)
Operating system
macOS
Details on version and operating system
MacOS 13.6 (22G120)
Checked with the latest development build (copy version output from About dialog)
- [X] I made a backup of my libraries before testing the latest development version.
- [X] I have tested the latest development version and the problem persists
Steps to reproduce the behaviour
Casing of custom field names is inconsistent in several different ways as described below. I believe these inconsistencies may have been introduced with #9993, at least partly.
In the Details
pane, casing does not respect the bibtex file in contrary to what is declared in this comment
- Create a new custom field in the
biblatex source
tab - Make the field name upper case, e.g.
Newfield
- Save, close and reopen file
- Observe that in the
Other fields
tab thenewfield
field name is lowercased, as it is in the BibTeX file. In fact, lowercase has been enforced and saved into file! - Observe that built-in BibTeX fields such as
Author
orTitle
are always uppercase in the UI and always lowercase in the BibTeX file.
Now, there is a way to make custom fields appear uppercase, but
In the Details pane
, built-in tabs such as Required fields
or Optional fields
only partially respect JabRef preferences
- Go to
Preferences > Entry types
and choose the type of your test BibTeX entry, e.g. "Book" - Create a custom field
Newfield
(uppercase) within that entry type, also make one of the existing built-in fields such asAuthor
lowercase - Export preferences into an
xml
file - Quit and start JabRef anew
- In the
Details pane
, observe that bothNewfield
andAuthor
are uppercase, although one would expectauthor
to become lowercase - In the
xml
file, observe thatauthor
is lowercase whileNewfield
is uppercase - In the
xml
file, observe that built-in field names are all lowercase, whileNewfield
is uppercase.Newfield
becomes lowercase when done so through preferences. - JabRef enforces the built-in field names to appear always uppercase in the UI and always lowercase in files, both
xml
prefs and BibTeXbib
sources.
In the Details pane
, custom tabs do not respect anything, neither BibTeX source, nor preferences.
- Go to
Preferences > Entry Editor
and create a custom tab such asFields:author;newfield
- Observe that no matter what,
author
always appears uppercase andnewfield
always appears lowercase.
Summary
Currently, it is not possible to have a consistent casing across the Details pane and a BibTeX file:
- Built-in field names are always lowercase
- Custom field names can be made both, but not in custom tabs
- Lowercase is enforced in
bib
files - Lowercase is almost exclusively enforced in
xml
preferences file - only custom fields can be saved uppercase injabref-entrytype
fields, though not incustomTabFields
fields.
Appendix
The below screenshots should illustrate what is written above.