biblatex: Cite commands with the same author prints authors name twice

Question

I'm using biblatex 1.4b, and Biber 0.9. However, I think the problem is with my settings, not with the versions of those programs.

I'm trying to cite a single author, and produce their name, followed by the dates of two papers, using the authoryear-ibid style, and natbib compatability. Here's my biblatex preamble:

\usepackage[style=authoryear-ibid,natbib=true,backend=biber]{biblatex}

What I want is for the following command: The works by \citet{Blau81, Blau88} ... to produce: The works by Blau (1981; 1988) ... however, what I'm getting is: The works by Blau (1981); Blau (1988)...

I know that biblatex knows they're the same author, since in the bibliography they fall under the same name (i.e. after the first instance of the name, there's just a dash instead of the name)

What am I doing wrong here? I've also tried it with the commands \cite and \cites, and neither produces what I want.

(crossposted with comp.text.tex)

Answer 1

You want the authoryear-icomp citation style, instead of authoryear-ibid. From the biblatex manual: "[authoryear-comp is a] compact variant of the authoryear style which prints the author only once if subsequent references passed to a single citation command share the same author." (p. 61) The authoryear-icomp style combines -comp and -ibid.

Answer 2

In addition to switching to the authoryear-icomp style, you might also want to change the delimiter for "compressed" multiple citations to a semicolon (instead of the default comma) plus an interword space:

\renewcommand*{\compcitedelim}{\addsemicolon\space}

EDIT: The above tweak is especially useful if you suppress the page prefix for citation postnotes (with \DeclareFieldFormat{postnote}{#1}, \DeclareFieldFormat{multipostnote}{#1}), resulting in e.g.

Sengupta and Tipple 2007, 2009

instead of

Sengupta and Tipple 2007, p. 2009

This way it is clear that "2009" is the page cited* and not another works by the same author(s) as in

Sengupta and Tipple 2007; 2009

* Here's the link to the abstract of the actual article starting at p. 2009.