Contribute to JabRef

We are really happy that you are interested in contributing to JabRef. Please take your time to look around here. We especially invite you to look into our community members page where members introduce themselves.

I would like to try out a feature introduced at pull request.

In JabRef, there are dozens of bug fixes and new features introduced using GitHub's pull request mechansim. You can browse all at https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/pulls. The JabRef team really welcomes users to try out these changes and to comment on them. Improving on changes in active pull requests is much easier than fixing them later on after their acceptance.

If you are familiar with the command line on your OS, then it is very easy to try out pull requests and give feedback. In the following, we try to give a minimal set of installation instructions to be able to run a contribution from a fork.

Required tooling:

• GitHubCLI - A command-line client for GitHub. You can install it using the installer linked on their homepage or the commands given at the installation hints.

• gg.cmd - A cross-platform and cross-architecture version manager. Download gg.cmd and store it in your home (or Downloads) directory.

Initial setup:

• Windows:

  • Open PowerShell

  • Switch to a directory containing git repositories. We recommend c:\git-repositories

    • mkdir c:\git-repositories

    • cd c:\git-repositories

  • Get gg.cmd

    • wget ggcmd.io -OutFile gg.cmd

  • Clone JabRef

    • ./gg.cmd jbang https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/blob/main/.jbang/CloneJabRef.java JabRef

  • Make gg.cmd available in JabRef directory

    • cd JabRef

    • move ..\gg.cmd .

• Linux:

  • Open a shell

  • Switch to a directory containing git repositories. We recommend ~/git-repositories

    • mkdir ~/git-repositories

    • cd ~/git-repositories

  • Get gg.cmd (using either wget or curl)

    • wget ggcmd.io/gg.cmd

    • Alternative: curl -L ggcmd.io > gg.cmd

  • Clone JabRef

    • sh ./gg.cmd jbang https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/blob/main/.jbang/CloneJabRef.java JabRef

    • NOTE: You can also use the native git client: git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/JabRef/jabref.git JabRef for achieving the same result.

  • Make gg.cmd available in JabRef directory

    • cd JabRef

    • mv ../gg.cmd .

Now you are all set: You have a directory JabRef containing the recent updates and also gg.cmd which you will need later for executing a JabRef build.

Try a branch:

1. cd into the JabRef directory: cd c:\git-repositories\JabRef

2. Checkout out the pull request: gh pr checkout 13111 - where 13111 is the PR number, in this case pr#13111.
3. Compile and run JabRef: gg.cmd gradle run :jabgui:run (on Linux and macOS, you need to prefix it with sh: gg.cmd gradle run :jabgui:run). This will also download the necessary JDK and gradle distribution. On the first run, please give the system enough time to accommodate and wait until the JabRef window launches. Depending on your hardware, this may take minutes.

Alternatives:

1. You don't want to use gg.cmd: You have the project clone ready and have some Java JDK available: In the JabRef directory, execute ./gradlew run.

2. You don't want to use GitHub's gh tool: You can use the "usual" git clone ..., git remote add ..., git fetch ..., and git checkout ... commands to checkout a pull request from a fork.

I would like to improve the help page.

Please see How to Improve the Help Page

I would like to help translating JabRef to another language.

We encourage you to read about translating the JabRef user interface.

I would like to keep Wikipedia pages up-to-date.

JabRef improves -- and Wikipedia pages should keep up!

For changes affecting all languages, update the wikidata entry of JabRef.

For changes in a specific language, go to the related page, and simply click on "Edit" (top right-hand tab). Currently, existing pages are:

• Deutsch: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Español: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Français: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Italiano: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Русский: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Portuguese: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Svenska: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• Українська: https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef
• 中文: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/JabRef

If there is no page for your own language, you can easily create one.

I have some cool feature requests.

Come discuss it!

Can I make a donation? How?

Donations keep us going! You can use PayPal or bank transfers. Your institution/company can contribute too, through bank transfer for example. All details are provided at https://donations.jabref.org.

Our team consists of volunteers. To provide better support, we are currently trying to get a funded developer on board. Please consider donating money!

I would like to contribute code. How to?

Please head to our Contributing Guide.