🚀 JabRef 6.0-Alpha2 Release 🚀
We are happy to announce the release of JabRef 6.0-Alpha2, the next step towards the stable version of JabRef 6.0. This alpha release brings many usability improvements, new integrations, and a huge number of new features — all thanks to your feedback and our ongoing development efforts!
As always, since this is an alpha release, we strongly recommend making a backup of your .bib files before updating.
Release Highlights
This release focuses on improving the user experience, CSL support, and adding helpful quality-of-life enhancements.
Better onboarding and a fresh start
To help new users get started more easily, we’ve introduced:
- A brand-new Welcome tab shown when no database is open. #12272
- A more accessible empty-library screen, with buttons to add an example entry or import existing PDFs. #12662
It is now easier than ever to get started with JabRef.
Huge improvements for LibreOffice CSL integration
We’ve continued to expand the LibreOffice integration:
- You can now customize the bibliography title and its formatting for CSL styles. #12663
- Support for custom CSL styles has been added. #12337
- A revamped and faster “Select Style” dialog makes it easier to work with your preferred styles. #12838
- Rendering and refreshing CSL style citations and bibliographies in your LibreOffice document is now much faster. #12851
- Support for 82 new built-in CSL styles! #12996
These changes mark another big milestone for users relying on academic writing workflows with LibreOffice.
Smarter citation key editing
- Citation key pattern editing now includes intelligent suggestions via a drop-down list as you type — a real productivity boost when configuring your citation workflow! #12502
- We have reverted the [authorsAlpha] pattern behavior to its original form and introduced a new [authorsAlphaLNI] pattern for those needing the newer logic. #12499
UI and productivity enhancements
Some notable UI and UX improvements include:
- New keyboard shortcuts: F5 for fetching data, Alt+F for DOI lookup, and F2 to rename subgroups. #11802
- Enhanced drag-and-drop for groups and keyword ordering. #10984
- A new dialog for checking bibliography consistency. #11950
- A “Copy citation (text)” and “Export to clipboard” option in the entry preview. #12551
- Automatic PubMed URL insertion during import. #12832
- A refined integrity check that warns if URLs appear in titles. #12354
Better AI and PDF handling
- Our AI chat feature now includes example questions to help users get started. #12702
- Additionally, XMP metadata parsing and offline BibTeX extraction from PDFs have been further improved. #12829
Command-line and backend enhancements
- A new CLI output mode now supports .txt, .csv, and console output for better script integration. #11984
- The PostgreSQL search backend now supports ARM-based Linux and macOS. #12607
There are many more changes to check out. Take a look at the full changelog for all additions, changes, and fixes.
Known Issues
This is an alpha release, and we are still actively working on multiple issues. Some of them may be a regression to the last stable minor release of the 5 major series. Use the alpha release for testing only, and do not forget to backup your libraries.
Be aware that currently the update notification is broken. It will inform you that a new version of JabRef is available, even though you have downloaded the latest release. Just ignore this message and the version.
Feedback and Testing
We’re keen to hear your feedback! Please report bugs, suggestions, or feature requests on our GitHub issue tracker or join the discussion in our discussion board, in our gitter-channel or on Mastodon. Finally we want to thank again all donators of time and money for their generous donations which enables us to continue working on JabRef!
Thank you for testing JabRef 6.0 Alpha2, and remember to make a backup of your libraries first! 💙
Thanks again to all the first time contributors at JabRef, especially in the context of gsoc application period!
Contributors
We thank following external contributors who contributed code to this JabRef release:
