Support APA Legal citation types

[jrmoserbaltimore]

Is your suggestion for improvement related to a problem? Please describe.

The BibLaTeX manual gives a number of "unsupported" styles of specific names, recognized but treated as @misc. Certain styles, particularly biblatex-apa, support these. In particular, the legal styles such as jurisdiction (court cases), legislation, etc.

Of particular note is the style example for jurisdiction provided by biblatex-apa:

@JURISDICTION{11.4:5,
  TITLE                = {Durflinger v. Artiles},
  CITATION             = {563 F.Supp. 332 and aff'd and 727 F.2d 888},
  CITATION+an:citeorg  = {1="D. Kan.";3="10th Cir."},
  CITATION+an:citedate = {1="1981";3="1984"},
  CITATION+an:citeinfo = {2=appeal},
  URL                  = {https://openjurist.org/727/f2d/888/durflinger-v-artiles},
  DATE                 = {1984},
  ORIGDATE             = {1981}
}

These include annotation fields, CITATION+an:...

Describe the solution you'd like

Inclusion of style types for these such styles BibLaTeX treats as @misc, complete with the additional annotations, preferably under the Annotation tab.

It would be a larger change to also include automatic citation, for example Legislation based on State and code reference or bill references, or Court cases based on jurisdiction and case number, etc., as this would entail pulling information from many, many sources, all with different presentation. The scope of this issue is merely providing the style type for selection by the user, who will fill in the details on their own, and excludes any such automated reference generation.

[ThiloteE]

I am happy to tell you what you imagine may not be the default view of JabRef, but most of it can already be achieved with a customized configuration of current JabRef (v. 5.6)!

1. How to do and what is currently already possible:

   Customize entry types via options > customize entry types
   

   Example bib-file:

   @Jurisdiction-test{testkey,
    citation             = {b},
    citation+an:citedate = {2022},
    citation+an:citeinfo = {e},
    citation+an:citeorg  = {c},
    date                 = {2022},
    origdate             = {2000},
    title                = {a},
    url                  = {f},
    }
   

   What you get is:

   

2. What is lacking:

• I tried to attach fields to the Annotation tab via options > preferences > custom editor tabs,
  (like this:)
  
  - but first of all, CITATION+an:citeorg leads to an error when trying to save the preferences. It looks like JabRef cannot detect this syntax. Maybe the + or the : are special symbols.
  
  - Secondly, it looks like the Annotation tab only shows up if there are actual annotations (e.g. annotations in your linked PDF file). This would need to be changed if sticking "entry type annotations" to "PDF annotations", but since this depends on the definition of what "annotations" actually are (looking at you Entry Editor: new Attachments tab #4691 - there is the idea to merge the annotation tab with other tabs), the workaround for now could be to add these fields under "comments" instead. Well, obviously this workaround only works, if the problem with the error is solved.

[ThiloteE]

Another easy workaround would be to put

CITATION+an:citeorg
CITATION+an:citedate
CITATION+an:citeinfo

into the optional fields tab.
This can easily be done in the options > customize entry type dialogue

[jrmoserbaltimore]

I've done some of that on my end yeah. I also did some googling to figure out how to use those particular entry types, along with that they even exist.

Not disputing that the customization can be done; just pointing out this is common enough (in certain fields) and directly supported by APA style that many users would benefit from just having those few additional types there same as the other entry types. Covering absolutely everything might be untenable, but covering what's acknowledged in the biblatex manual and what's supported by APA (used in law schools and legal journals) seems at least prudent.

The custom editor tabs thing is probably a bug.

[Siedlerchr]

We added support for the biblatex-sotware package, so I think it should be okay to add some legal stuff as well

[Siedlerchr]

Biblatex mentions typical non-standard types which are, however, supported by certain styles.

jurisdiction: Court decisions, court recordings, and similar things.
legislation: Laws, bills, legislative proposals, and similar things.
legal: Legal documents such as treaties.

> The types are known to the default
data model and will be happily accepted by biber

So should be fine to add them:
Can be implemented similar to biblate software

For reference: ADR for biblatex software
https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/blob/5d3eb0864c3e4d9b2e92752008d110a208624512/docs/decisions/0013-add-native-support-biblatex-software.md

[Siedlerchr]

@jrmoserbaltimore We added the new entry types with their corresponding fields, you can try it out in the latest development version https://builds.jabref.org/main/
If you think some fields need to be changed (e..g to required or optional) it would be nice please feel free to open an issue. It was not that clear from the biblatex doc