"Printed" and "Readstatus" are not remembered, when removed from "Keywords"

[StephanJohn]

JabRef 5.0--2020-03-06--2e6f433
Windows 10 10.0 amd64
Java 13.0.2

• Mandatory: I have tested the latest development version from http://builds.jabref.org/master/ and the problem persists

The special fields Printed and Readstatus do not work independently of the Keywords field:

I added the Printed field to show up in the main table. If I click the printer icon next to an "article" entry, JabRef adds the word "printed" to the Printed and the Keywords fields. Because I would like to use my Keywords field for other purposes, I delete the word "printed" from the Keywords field.

If I now close the file and re-open it, the "printed" entry is lost from the Printed field. But only if the Keywords field contains other entries. If Keywords is empty, "printed" is not lost!

(The same is true, I noticed, for the ReadStatus field - I haven't tested any other fields.)

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Make sure to have a database entry with non-empty Keywords field.
2. Set "printed" status to true.
3. Remove "printed" from the Keywords field.
4. Save file.
5. Reopen file.

[Siedlerchr]

Hi there is a setting in the preferences, sync special fields to keywords. I guess this setting is enabled and causes the behavior

[mlep]

Shouldn't the checkbox "sync special fields to keywords" be unchecked by default?
It is not obvious for a user that special fields and keywords are/should/need to be linked, and this leads to confusion.
My guess is that the principle of least surprise would recommend not to link by default these two features.
Another to tackle th issue:

• why do they need to be linked?
• why do they need to be linked by default?

[koppor]

I remember our internal discussion, that we should migrate the functionality to the groups feature. Therefore tagging as "jabcon".

The development history is that at the introduction of the feature, the developer was not sure what's best: keywords or seperate fields. Some were arguing that "keywords" should be the ones provided by the publisher and not be modified (at all costs). Others were arguing that keywords are the sole realm of the user.

To the concerete case: The preferences allow only one of the two cases:

Thus, this really seems to a bug.

[koppor]

Decision:

• For JabRef 5.2, we change the default to "not sync".
• We will offer a migration from keywords to special fields

@StephanJohn May I ask how you configured JabRef?

[StephanJohn]

@koppor: I hadn't been aware of the "sync keywords to special fields" option, so this had been set to "enabled" by default.