Relevance star should only appear when toggled

[ryan-carpenter]

When the Relevance (Special) column is shown in the entry table and the relevance of an entry is false, hovering over the entry makes a star appear in that column, regardless of the actual value. This makes it hard to identify and select the intended value, because relevance always appears true for the entry under the cursor. For instance, clicking with the intention of removing the star when relevance is already false will set it to true (opposite of the intended result).

The relevance status should be discernable regardless of hovering state.

Possible solutions

• Show relevance star only when relevance = true
• Use a different indicator on hover when relevance = false

JabRef 5.10--2023-09-01--779e555
Linux 6.4.12-1-default amd64
Java 21-internal
JavaFX 20+19

[LenkaBuebnkova]

Hi, I would like to try to solve this issue, if it's possible :)

[github-actions]

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[ThiloteE]

Thanks, @LenkaBuebnkova
To test your changes, you can go to File > Preferences > Entry table > ... and add Relevance (Special) to the table.

[ryan-carpenter]

The BibTeX source shows relevance = {relevant} for true or no data for false

[LenkaBuebnkova]

Hello, I'd appreciate a more comprehensive explanation. While I grasp the general idea, I'm struggling to pinpoint the specific section of the code responsible for setting the 'RELEVANCE' value. Could you kindly assist me in locating this information?

[koppor]

@LenkaBuebnkova I think, maybe the code is somewhere in org.jabref.gui.maintable.columns.SpecialFieldColum. I currently do not see where the actual data is filled. You need to read the code.

Note that you can search for an arbitrary string in the code using Ctrl+Shift+F. Maybe that helps to locate some code.

[koppor]

I can reproduce.

The issue is that we treat toggle fields differently than fields with more than one value.

Long ago, we decided that it has to be possible to quickly change the state. We did not want to distinguish between undefined, true, and false. We decided to have following to cases:

relevance = {relevant} if entry is relevant

@Article{,
  priority   = {prio1},
  readstatus = {read},
  relevance  = {relevant},
}

and relevance not existing if not relevant

@Article{,
  priority   = {prio1},
  readstatus = {read},
}

We are aware that this cases huge diffs if changing that state, but we accept it in favor of a smaller BibTeX file.

---

One sees that we use the same color for "relevant" and for "toggle relevance" (on hover). This is not an issue for the read status, because we use colors if set.

There is not a consistency between the contents for the star-ratings (1 to 5 stars if set - all unset stars are gray) and the hover for the other fields.

We do not want to do a deep change to relevance (e.g., introducing slightly relevant, relevant, highly relevant), but keep as is.

We do following:

• Show relevance star only when relevance = true (already implemented)
• Use a different indicator on hover when relevance = false --> we will use a different color (consistent with the stars)

---

Fix: Color the icons to the colors of the five gray stars (instead of the black). Hoping that the user can distinguish gray from black.