Setting: As a research group, the BibTeX data is collaboratively managed. Some contributors might comment on a BibTeX entry (instead of commenting into the PDF). One might want to have tooling support to know from which contributor which comment comes from. (CloudRef offers that feature for PDF comments: https://github.com/JabRef/cloudref)

Implementation Hints

• Currently, comments are stored as follows:

  @InBook{demo,
    author  = {Author Test},
    comment = {comment by user koppor: One should really read this paper},
  }

• New storage format:

  @InBook{demo,
    author  = {Author Test},
    comment-koppor = {One Should really read this paper},
  }

• No migration of existing comment fields should be done
• The field comment should still be displayed
• All comments of all users are displayed
• Only comments of the current user are allowed to be edited
• The suffix for the comment field name can be retrieved by OwnerPreferences#getDefaultOwner().
• Advanced: Other comments are displayed with a lock symbol. One can click on the lock to be able to edit the comment

Side note: We have user-specific file directory, user- + host-specific aux file, now it's time for user-specific comment field. We should re-use the functionality to determine the username

@Comment{jabref-meta: fileDirectory-koppor-DESKTOP-KAK953S:c:\\temp;}

Alternative Implementation Possibilities

Following possibilities were discussed, but neglected:

• Enforce manual process that each contributor puts his initials in front
• Use git blame (see Add git blame support #532)