Remove/prevent "Ghost" navigation history when using importers

[subhramit]

JabRef version

Latest development branch build (please note build date below)

Operating system

Windows

Details on version and operating system

Windows

Checked with the latest development build (copy version output from About dialog)

• I made a backup of my libraries before testing the latest development version.
• I have tested the latest development version and the problem persists

Details

During JabCon 2025, we worked on adding some new features and possibly breaking changes. One of these included "Chronological navigation in libraries".
This was essentially an improved "per-tab" version of the same feature which existed in JabRef 4.x and was removed in 5.x

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Open JabRef
2. Open an empty library
3. The navigation (back/forward) buttons should be disabled
4. Bulk-import multiple entries into the library (I imported ~30 entries - I searched for "black hole" via search pre-configured fetcher and imported the first page)
5. See that the navigation buttons are available, and sometimes some sequence of pressing them can take you to certain entries

Possible hint to solution

When any new entry is added/imported, the maintable selects it via:

jabref/jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/LibraryTab.java

Lines 493 to 497 in e7a5420

	// Add the listener that binds selection to state manager (TODO: should be replaced by proper JavaFX binding as soon as table is implemented in JavaFX)
	// content binding between StateManager#getselectedEntries and mainTable#getSelectedEntries does not work here as it does not trigger the ActionHelper#needsEntriesSelected checker for the menubar
	mainTable.addSelectionListener(event -> {
	List<BibEntry> entries = event.getList().stream().map(BibEntryTableViewModel::getEntry).toList();
	stateManager.setSelectedEntries(entries);

to show which entry was last added.
In case of bulk imports, there is no defined order of import (and thus no defined order of selections), and these selections should not be counted in the navigation history.
The challenge will be to track when bulk imports happen and disable the history list updates in such cases.

Appendix

No response

[subhramit]

Alternative way would be to disable auto-selection altogether during bulk-import, not just history update.
"Least clean" workaround solution would be to clear out history by last X items from the list, if X items were imported.