Post

πŸŽ„ JabRef 5.12 Release - 20 years of JabRef πŸŽ„

We are publishing version 5.12 of JabRef! Just in time for the holidays, we present this new iteration with a couple of new features and bug fixes. This time, the occasion is very special, as we have something to celebrate: This year marks the 20-year jubilee of JabRef! Since its foundation in 2003, JabRef has come a long way and continues to thrive! We have seen massive amounts of contributions from all across the globe that have accumulated to give JabRef its present form and are incredibly grateful for your support throughout these past two decades. It was only made possible by all those involved - from users like yourself who provided feedback on how best to improve functionality through code contributions or simply spreading word-of-mouth praise.

Release Highlights

One cool new feature is the fetcher for scholar.archive.org. In addition, we added integration with Scite.ai to show context for citations. Another new feature is the check for predatory journals.

We also took the opportunity to improve and streamline the User Interface in JabRef. For example, we now have the option to auto-detect the dark or light theme based on the System Preferences.

Take a look at the changelog for a full list of all changes.

20 years of JabRef

JabRef 1.0 was released on November, 29th, 2003. You can download the jar file at https://sourceforge.net/projects/jabref/files/v1.0%20to%20v2.11.1/1.0/ and run it on your local machine (in case you have a Java Runtime Environment installed).

Screenshot JabRef 1.0 about dialog

Stay tuned for our upcoming blog series with interviews from past and current contributors who worked over the time at JabRef!

Important information

We upgraded to JavaFX 21.0.1. As a consequence, JabRef requires now macOS 11 or later and on Linux GTK 3.8 or later

Special Thanks

The JabRef Team wishes all of you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! Up to the next 20 years!

We thank the following external contributors who contributed code to this JabRef release:

Furthermore, we thank all users who continuously tested and reported back on different development versions. Finally, since JabRef is entirely run by volunteers, we would like to thank all our donators who financially support the development! To be part of that community, please check out our donation possibilities.

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.