MarkK09
commented
4 years ago All that JabRef as a BibTeX Editor provides is a GUI that operates exclusively on the BibTeX-source code and nothing else. It only gives nice views on the entryfields.
This is important because many editors invent new fields which are unknown to BibTeX and it doesn't know how to handle it. BTW: Most BibTeX-Styles also don't know how to handle exotic entrytypes. Therefore, I would recommend sticking with article, book, (in)collection, (in)proceedings and for example change entries like
@unpublished{BermanPetersAdamou2019, ...
to
@article{BermanPetersAdamou2019, ...
E.g. I often find something like the following:
@article{Peters2011c, Author = {Ole Peters}, Institution = {Santa Fe Institute}, Journal = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1578}, Optnote = {submitted to J. Econ.}, Title = {Menger 1934 revisited}, Url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1578}, Year = 2011, Bdsk-Url-1 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1578}}
The same information (http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1578) appears at 3 places and at least 3 fields are unnecessary and Bdsk is editor-idiosyncratic. I guess the creator was searching for an entryfield for the link, which makes it appear in the final PDF at a place which was 'ok-ish'. IMHO this could look in clean like this:
Article{Peters2011c, author = {Peters, Ole}, title = {Menger 1934 revisited}, year = {2011}, eprint = {1110.1578v1}, eprintclass = {q-fin.RM}, % optional eprinttype = {arXiv} }
If one switches to BibLaTeX, all the preprint links work just fine and one doesn't need to find a quasi-field which accomodates a link properly (again see Time Lotteries project for BibLaTeX in action).
JabRef then combines this with some nice features of a good editor (sorting after arbitrary entryfields, BibTeX key generator, automatic import of new entries from DOI/ PubMed-ID/title), automatic check for double entries. Most convenient is that you can simply create the BibTeX entry from a DOI or a title (and some cleaning checks).
The main problem with non-lightweight ReferenceManager apps (like BibDesk, Mendeley/Citavi/etc) if one predominantly works with LaTeX/BibTeX is that they define arbitrary fields that not necessarily have a BibTeX-field-counterpart. BibTeX then doesn't know how to handle a field called crazybooksubtitle, because no BibTeX style uses this entry and the information never appears in the final PDF.
I prefer to automatise as much as possible in the handling of my .bib-Files. E.g. I've never manually set a BibTeX key. I use a lightweight editor JabRef to manage my .bib files. JabRef is one if not THE best open source lightweight freeware editor for bibtex source code for all platforms out there.
JabRef allows to specify a BibTeX key generator. It's possible to export JabRef preferences/settings and to import them on another machine. If we would like to coordinate on only using JabRef we could simply add the jabref preference file as part of the LML bibliography git-Project and all local of all member of the LMLHub and their resp. JabRef versions use synchronised conventions. Everytime a new member wants to contribute or one of us sets up a new machine all that is needed is just an import of the settings file and one is ready to go.