Add Markdown rendering to AI Chat #13194

Yubo-Cao · 2025-05-30T18:14:58Z

See this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VOvWBLP5E9I_sLXd7RpShfXoP0ttg0JZ/view?usp=sharing for a quick demo. Ctrl+C is supported as a part of this PR as well.

Mandatory checks

I own the copyright of the code submitted and I license it under the MIT license
Change in CHANGELOG.md described in a way that is understandable for the average user (if change is visible to the user)
Tests created for changes (if applicable) (not applicable)
Manually tested changed features in running JabRef (always required)
Screenshots added in PR description (if change is visible to the user)
Checked developer's documentation: Is the information available and up to date? If not, I outlined it in this pull request.
Checked documentation: Is the information available and up to date? If not, I created an issue at https://github.com/JabRef/user-documentation/issues or, even better, I submitted a pull request to the documentation repository.

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java

… markdown-ai

subhramit

Code reads really good.
Did not try out, but demo is attached to the description, so green from me.
Thanks @Yubo-Cao!

koppor · 2025-05-31T07:38:02Z

See this: drive.google.com/file/d/1VOvWBLP5E9I_sLXd7RpShfXoP0ttg0JZ/view?usp=sharing for a quick demo.

Looks very nice.

Side track: "Summary" is a very different AI function, therefore @InAnYan put another tab for "Summary". -- For instance, for large PDFs, JabRef splits into chuncks and summarizes chunks.

koppor

Only a small comment.

Are spaces correctly handled for the getTextFlowContent()?

I assume, adding test cases is too hard here?

jabgui/src/main/java/module-info.java

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/ai/components/aichat/chatmessage/ChatMessageComponent.java

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/SelectableTextFlow.java

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java

InAnYan · 2025-05-31T18:58:04Z

This is wonderful, Yubo!

I can copy text! And you also solved a very very naughty problem, when you could click on past messages and chat scrolled down! That problem make me feel desperate about JavaFX.

I could approve this PR without reviewing code 😄

Though, I remembered I have one small addition

InAnYan

Unfortunately, I had to request one small change

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/ai/components/aichat/chatmessage/ChatMessageComponent.java

InAnYan · 2025-05-31T19:04:58Z

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/SelectableTextFlow.java

+/**
+ * A TextFlow that allows text selection and copying.
+ */
+public class SelectableTextFlow extends TextFlow {


OMG, Yubo, is it possible to submit this code to some library? GemsFX maybe? This is a very useful piece of code

+1 for GemsFX. If the maintainer Dirk doesn't want it, then ControlsFX

jabgui/src/main/java/module-info.java

Yubo-Cao · 2025-06-01T02:02:23Z

Only a small comment.

Are spaces correctly handled for the getTextFlowContent()?

I assume, adding test cases is too hard here?

So after actually switch to Arch Linux and run testcases over there (of course that was not needed at all to come up with this conclusion looking at how I butchered the Markdown AST), is that we currently don't handle whitespace perfectly, if at all.

White space inside a single markdown node is always preserved, so *italic with space* that kind of thing is OK
White space between nodes is always not preserved.
Bulleted indentation always get destroyed (if you nest).
Original markdown style marker would always disappear (think * and all those special characters)

I think my new attempt would be trying to keep track a bit more metadata in MarkdownTextflow and basically override getTextFlowContent.

subhramit · 2025-06-01T11:45:54Z

@Yubo-Cao Please resolve conversations after you push the commits resolving them, not before

subhramit · 2025-06-02T22:35:05Z

If things get too convoluted, git merge upstream/main, git reset upstream/main and then make a fresh commit. you may have to force push.

Note: gitk --all to have the commit ids ready in gitk in case something goes wrong. Your local changes should not be lost, but it is always a good idea to have a trace/backup.

subhramit · 2025-06-02T22:37:26Z

If things get too convoluted, git merge upstream/main, git reset upstream/main and then make a fresh commit. you may have to force push.

Note: gitk --all to have the commit ids ready in gitk in case something goes wrong. Your local changes should not be lost, but it is always a good idea to have a trace/backup.

Another handy resource: https://ohshitgit.com/

koppor · 2025-06-02T22:41:19Z

If things get too convoluted, git merge upstream/main, git reset upstream/main and then make a fresh commit. you may have to force push.

However, JabRef mainatinaers don't like force pushes - only in rare emergency cases ^^

I always direct to https://lostechies.com/joshuaflanagan/2010/09/03/use-gitk-to-understand-git/ -- then, the git commands should be more understandable.

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/SelectableTextFlow.java

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java

Yubo-Cao · 2025-06-02T23:05:54Z

Before all, thank you so much for y'all's assistance in correcting me about proper usage of Resolve Conversation and Git. Apologies for any inconvenience or potential offense that may have caused. I really appreciated your understanding and patience.

In this update, the following features were added

HTML and Markdown copy of Markdown textflow.
Better white space handling in regard of paragraphs, bullets, etc.
Block quote and code block as fall back rendering method.

A demo can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16zosXoTq0dgksYshqLzKkAGXudKaCv3b/view?usp=drive_link

InAnYan · 2025-06-04T07:05:30Z

I'm still getting that error with getScene() is null.

And BTW I'm on Arch too, and I didn't spot any major problems with Markdown rendering

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java

koppor · 2025-06-05T01:44:59Z

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/ai/components/aichat/chatmessage/ChatMessageComponent.java

-        });
+        NumberBinding maxUsableWidth = Bindings.createDoubleBinding(
+                () -> getScene() == null ? 600 : getScene().getWidth() - 20, sceneProperty(),
+                getScene() == null ? widthProperty() : getScene().widthProperty()


Is it possible to add a comment in which cases Scene is null?

Or is it "magically" null and we don't know - then maybe also comment that it is unclar, but we need to check

Reason null is an indicaton that there is some bug in the code. In this case, it seems to be life-cycle related.

--> Could help to create an MWE and mayb file a JavaFX issue - its not always on our side that something is wrong - see e.g., JabRef#713

When I proposed my fix, I used this answer of StackOverflow (warning: non-English):

link

I think the author gives a good, if you let me say this, "idiom" of handling this

trag-bot · 2025-06-06T00:13:49Z

@trag-bot didn't find any issues in the code! ✅✨

Yubo-Cao and others added 3 commits May 30, 2025 14:07

feat: markdown in AI messages

e04f0de

docs: update CHANGELOG

ebcd900

Merge branch 'JabRef:main' into markdown-ai

ae2e2fa

trag-bot bot reviewed May 30, 2025

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jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Yubo-Cao added 2 commits May 30, 2025 14:21

fix: note that Markdown is always valid, it never throw.

2b2fa66

Merge branch 'markdown-ai' of https://github.com/Yubo-Cao/jabref into…

be60b42

… markdown-ai

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Yubo-Cao added 3 commits May 31, 2025 12:23

chore: move Flexmark dependency up

3336504

fix: remove null check for scnee

17becfb

docs: remove trivial documentation

abd52c0

Yubo-Cao dismissed subhramit’s stale review via abd52c0 May 31, 2025 16:26

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jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

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jabgui/src/main/java/module-info.java Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Improve whitespace and MarkdownTextflow's coping experience

99a6c3d

Yubo-Cao requested a review from InAnYan June 2, 2025 22:10

Yubo-Cao force-pushed the markdown-ai branch from 4e5b8c2 to 99a6c3d Compare June 2, 2025 22:55

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/main' into markdown-ai

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jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/SelectableTextFlow.java Show resolved Hide resolved

Use Deque and StringJoiner per code review.

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jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/util/MarkdownTextFlow.java Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Remove == null check and fix getScene()'s NPE

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Use @nonnull, rather than Objects.requireNonNull

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Yubo-Cao and others added 2 commits June 5, 2025 20:07

Get rid of width binding.

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Merge branch 'main' into markdown-ai

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Add Markdown rendering to AI Chat #13194

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Add Markdown rendering to AI Chat #13194

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Yubo-Cao commented May 30, 2025

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