The new tag system ignores hierarchical keywords. Only the parent keyword is shown.

[Siedlerchr]

          The new tag system ignores hierarchical keywords. Only the parent keyword is shown.

Originally posted by @andr-groth in https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues/10910#issuecomment-2175878088

[andr-groth]

Specifically, the new tag system breaks the feature introduced in #628.

Maybe related to this issue, the dialog in Edit > Manage keywords likewise ignores hierachical keywords and only shows parent keywords.

[koppor]

@andr-groth Maybe you could contribute to https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/issues/11026#issuecomment-1997725229 - where we plan to restructure the whole groups/keywords/tagging (new)! system.

[Siedlerchr]

Related discussion about hierarchical keywords https://discourse.jabref.org/t/preserve-pubmed-subject-headings-on-import/4362/1

[ryan-carpenter]

Related discussion about hierarchical keywords https://discourse.jabref.org/t/preserve-pubmed-subject-headings-on-import/4362/1

It's not a bad idea to support hierarchical keyword syntax. Just keep in mind that the data still need to be normalised during import and that hierarchical keywords complicate searching. For example, PubMed has a parentA/child1/child2 format but other databases supply MEDLINE terms one per line, resulting in keywords parentA/child1, parentA/child2.

Let's say JabRef has a syntax where

• > denotes parent > child,
• | denotes child1 | child2, and
• , is the keyword separator.

JabRef would need to treat parentA > child1 | child2 as equivalent to parentA > child1, parentA > child2 to recognise matching keywords that were entered or imported in different formats. Also consider other situations such as merging the keywords from different entries.