Changing a specialFieldValue does not update the sorting of entries immediately

[SebieF]

JabRef version

5.7 (latest release)

Operating system

GNU / Linux

Details on version and operating system

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Checked with the latest development build

• I made a backup of my libraries before testing the latest development version.
• I have tested the latest development version and the problem persists

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Create a new library and add at least two bib entries
2. Sort your columns by ranking (highest ranking first)
3. Set the ranking of the second entry to any rank: It should now be on top (as the other entry has a ranking of 0), but the position does only change after another change in the UI (e.g. setting the read status or setting a different rank value).

To be more precise, I inspected the code and found that the RankingFieldComparator always gets called with the old rank value, not the updated one. This is due to BibEntryTableViewModel which has both, the BibEntry entry and Map<SpecialField, OptionalBinding<SpecialFieldValueViewModel>> specialFieldValues attributes. The RankingFieldComparator is getting called with the value returned by public ObservableValue<Optional<SpecialFieldValueViewModel>> getSpecialField(SpecialField field) of the BibEntryTableViewModel object. This method returns the value from the specialFieldValues attribute, which, however, has not yet been updated as the comparator is called. The BibEntry entry field has in fact already been updated, which enables the following (dirty) workaround:

public ObservableValue<Optional<SpecialFieldValueViewModel>> getSpecialField(SpecialField field) {
        OptionalBinding<SpecialFieldValueViewModel> value = specialFieldValues.get(field);
        // Fetch already updated value from BibEntry entry
        Optional<String> currentValue = this.entry.getField(field);
        if (value != null) {
            // BEGIN WORKAROUND
            if(currentValue.isPresent()) {
                if (!value.getValue().get().getValue().getFieldValue().equals(currentValue)) {
                    value = getField(field).flatMapOpt(fieldValue -> field.parseValue(fieldValue).map(SpecialFieldValueViewModel::new));
                    specialFieldValues.put(field, value);
                    return value;
                }
            }
            // END WORKAROUND
            return value;
        } else {
            value = getField(field).flatMapOpt(fieldValue -> field.parseValue(fieldValue).map(SpecialFieldValueViewModel::new));
            specialFieldValues.put(field, value);
            return value;
        }
    }

I am new to JabRef, so I am not sure, why the extra specialFieldValues is actually needed, given that these values are already included in the BibEntry entry itself.

I like JabRef very much and am currently using it for my thesis, it is however a bit annoying to be forced to set the ranking twice by triggering the UI again. I would also be happy to create a PR for this myself, however, as already mentioned, I think that the "root cause" for the problem is nested a bit deeper, so more information would be necessary and much appreciated :)

[Siedlerchr]

Thanks for your investigation! That is really helpful.
For reference, there were also other issues with setting the rank #9326 and #9031

[SebieF]

I looked into the rank-clearing issue a bit and updated the workaround to also work with zero-rankings:

public ObservableValue<Optional<SpecialFieldValueViewModel>> getSpecialField(SpecialField field) {
        OptionalBinding<SpecialFieldValueViewModel> value = specialFieldValues.get(field);
        // Fetch already updated value from BibEntry entry
        Optional<String> currentValue = this.entry.getField(field);
        if (value != null) {
            // BEGIN WORKAROUND
            if (currentValue.isEmpty() && value.getValue().isEmpty()) {
                var zeroValue = getField(field).flatMapOpt(fieldValue -> field.parseValue("CLEAR_RANK").map(SpecialFieldValueViewModel::new));
                specialFieldValues.put(field, zeroValue);
                return zeroValue;
            } else if (value.getValue().isEmpty() || !value.getValue().get().getValue().getFieldValue().equals(currentValue)) {
                value = getField(field).flatMapOpt(fieldValue -> field.parseValue(fieldValue).map(SpecialFieldValueViewModel::new));
                specialFieldValues.put(field, value);
                return value;
            }

            // END WORKAROUND
            return value;
        } else {
            value = getField(field).flatMapOpt(fieldValue -> field.parseValue(fieldValue).map(SpecialFieldValueViewModel::new));
            specialFieldValues.put(field, value);
            return value;
        }
    }

[Siedlerchr]

@SebieF We would appreciate it if you could create a PR, I think your workaround is an acceptable solution. Better than nothing. The root cause is probably somewhere in the controlsfx control not having the option to remember the previous value