BibTex with VS Code

[sarialzerey]

Hi, I installed BibTex Tidy on VS Code, and am using latex workstation but I still don't see the fields sorted. Note: I'm not a coding expert.

Settings.json:
{
"files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
"editor.formatOnSave": true,
"editor.wordWrap": "on",

"editor.defaultFormatter": "Xrimson.bibtex-tidy",
"bibtex-tidy.sort": true,
"bibtex-tidy.removeDuplicateFields": true,
"bibtex-tidy.sortFields": true,

}

[araikes]

Bump for this as I'm running into the same issue on a Windows machine. I assume that this is user error on my part, I just don't know how to fix it.

[antongomez]

It looks like the VS Code extension documentation might be slightly outdated or misleading regarding the settings.json structure.

I found that defining the options at the root level (e.g., "bibtex-tidy.sort": true) doesn't seem to work. Instead, passing the CLI options nested inside a bibtex-tidy.options object works correctly.

Here is the configuration that worked for me:

{
  "[bibtex]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "Xrimson.bibtex-tidy"
  },
  "bibtex-tidy.options": {
    "sort": true,
    "removeDuplicateFields": false,
    "sortFields": true
    // Add other CLI options here using camelCase
  }
}

Hopefully, this helps update the docs or clarify usage for others!

[antongomez]

I just realized I was looking at the library repository, but the VS Code extension is actually hosted here: https://github.com/ThXrimson/bibtex-tidy-vscode.

After reviewing the source code of the extension, specifically in src/bib_tidy_provider.ts (lines 22-23), it confirms that the extension only reads configuration from the options object, ignoring root-level settings:

22 const bibtexTidyOptions =
23       workspace.getConfiguration("bibtex-tidy").get<BibTeXTidyOptions>("options") ?? {};

The available options within this object are defined in the package.json schema (https://github.com/ThXrimson/bibtex-tidy-vscode/blob/main/package.json):

"bibtex-tidy.options": {
          "type": "object",
          "description": "Configuration options for Bibtex Tidy",
          "properties": {
            "align": { ... },
            "blankLines": { ... },
            // ...

Since this is an issue with the extension's documentation/implementation and not this library, I will open an issue in the extension's repository to request a documentation update.