Implement special fields as separate fields

Context and Problem Statement

How to implement special fields in BibTeX databases?

Chosen option: “Special fields as separate fields”, because comes out best (see below).

Example:

priority = {prio1},
printed = {true},
readstatus = {true},

Good, because groups are another view to fields
Good, because a special field leads to a special rendering
Good, because groups pull information from the main table
Good, because hard-coding presets is easier than generic configuration
Good, because direct inclusion in main table
Good, because groups are shown with color bars in the main table
Good, because there are no “hidden groups” in JabRef
Good, because can be easily removed (e.g., by a formatter)
Good, because prepares future power of JabRef to make field properties configurable
Bad, because bloats BibTeX file
Bad, because requires more writing when editing BibTeX manually by hand

Example:

keywords = {prio1, printed, read}

Good, because does not bloat the BibTeX file. Typically, 50% of the lines are special fields
Good, because the user can easily assign a special field. E.g, typing “, prio1” into keywords instead of “\n priority = {prio1},”
Bad, because they need to be synchronized to fields (because otherwise, the maintable cannot render it)
Bad, because keywords are related to the actual content
Bad, because some users want to keep publisher keywords

Example:

jabrefspecial = {prio1, printed, red}

Good, because typing effort
Bad, because handling in table gets complicated → one field is now multiple columns

Good, because one concept rules them all
Good, because groups already provide explicit handling of certain cases: groups based on keywords and groups based on author’s last names
Bad, because main table implementation changes: Currently, each column in the main table represents a field. The main may mark entries belonging to certain groups, but does offer an explicit rendering of groups
Bad, because groups are more a query on data of the entries instead of explicitly assigning entries to a group
Bad, because explicit assignment and unassigment to a group is not supported by the main table