Changed fixed position of special columns. #3354

[dfischer049]

When activating the special columns in the preferences, all of them are added to the right of the maintable. Each restart of Jabref or rebuild of the maintable caused the columns to be added on the right side. #3354

I changed the fixed position of the special columns from the right of the maintable to the right of the URL column. I think this position makes it easier to work with these columns, because you have interesting information like read status in the beginning of the table.

I did this by rearranging the order in which the columns are added to the maintable. Because the special columns are treated different to the basic columns, you cannot change order within preferences.

• Change in CHANGELOG.md described
• Tests created for changes
• Screenshots added (for bigger UI changes)
• Manually tested changed features in running JabRef
• Check documentation status (Issue created for outdated help page at help.jabref.org?)
• If you changed the localization: Did you run gradle localizationUpdate?

[matthiasgeiger]

Just a quick remark from the Off as I do Not have the time to check.

I think due to a proposal by @koppor we intentionally moved the columns from the left to the far right side... We should check that

[lenhard]

Let us discuss the positioning of the special fields among the developers during the next devcall.

[koppor]

I think, we discussed that two years ago, but I don't remember. For me, moving it to the front is OK. But that might disturb new users of JabRef, because they first see the stars...

Do we need an additional preference? ^^

[dfischer049]

I could be nice to have the choice/option to either insert them in the beginning or end of the table . Another solution would be splitting the special columns and move only the stars/rating to the end of table.

[lenhard]

@devBeginner We've now talked this through among the core developers.

Unfortunately, we've decided against this solution. Moving the fields to the front for all users is just too strong a thing to do and might upset users. After all, there might be people who are very happy with having them on the right side. A fixed hard-coded moving of the special fields is not the way to go.

This should be solved in an alternative way, either:

• Fixing the bug that prevents the manual resorting of special fields to be stored and saved among different sessions of JabRef
• Introducing a new preference option that manages the order of special fields as suggested by @koppor

We know that these things are not trivial, but ultimately they are a better way to address the underlying problem.

You're very welcome to take one of these directions and you can do so in this PR if you want.

[koppor]

@devBeginner Sorry not to hear any feedback from you. We will close this, but hope, you will continue working on it --> we will be happy to reopen then.