An option for not aligning `=` when JabRef saves/imports bib files as well as adds new entries

Is your suggestion for improvement related to a problem? Please describe. I raised a question in the JabRef forum but found no solution. I think such an option is lacked in current JabRef stable release (i.e., version 5.5).

Describe the solution you’d like When JabRef adds new entries as well as formats existing bib files, it can be set to not add extra whitespaces to align = for each field in entries.

Additional context I would have entries persist like

@Article{key,
  author = {Author},
  title = {Title},
  year = {2022},
}

instead of

@Article{key,
  author = {Author},
  title  = {Title},
  year   = {2022},
}

[gaochenyi]

Out of curiosity: How much space would you save removing the empty spaces? How many entries do you have in your library file(s)?

@ThiloteE Currently I have 500+ entries. So it just saves 64 KiB for each time when I sync with online storage.

[Siedlerchr]

Hi, this is not possible and I doubt we will add this feature. The alignment was done purposefully, so that users with version control systems or other comparison tools have no weird issues when comparing files. For a history of the format evolution: https://github.com/JabRef/blog.jabref.org/pull/47/files

On import and file opening, the bib file is read by JabRef’s own Bibtex parser and a new library object is created which uses the alignment in the content serialization which is then also written to the file.