Reftex does not display the date field in the citation list, by design, only the year field. There is no option to tweak to correct this. You can fix this by modifying the responsible code directly, however.
It's a rather long function, and it only requires a very small change. I've modified the 'year' value that is displayed, so that it will contain both the year and the date. I assume there will only ever be one or the other, so you should see what you want. Add this to your .emacs and see how it works:
(eval-after-load "reftex-cite"
'(defun reftex-format-bib-entry (entry)
;; Format a BibTeX ENTRY so that it is nice to look at
(let*
((auth-list (reftex-get-bib-names "author" entry))
(authors (mapconcat 'identity auth-list ", "))
;; modified code here:
(year (concat (reftex-get-bib-field "year" entry)
(reftex-get-bib-field "date" entry)))
;; end modified code
(title (reftex-get-bib-field "title" entry))
(type (reftex-get-bib-field "&type" entry))
(key (reftex-get-bib-field "&key" entry))
(extra
(cond
((equal type "article")
(concat (reftex-get-bib-field "journal" entry) " "
(reftex-get-bib-field "volume" entry) ", "
(reftex-get-bib-field "pages" entry)))
((equal type "book")
(concat "book (" (reftex-get-bib-field "publisher" entry) ")"))
((equal type "phdthesis")
(concat "PhD: " (reftex-get-bib-field "school" entry)))
((equal type "mastersthesis")
(concat "Master: " (reftex-get-bib-field "school" entry)))
((equal type "inbook")
(concat "Chap: " (reftex-get-bib-field "chapter" entry)
", pp. " (reftex-get-bib-field "pages" entry)))
((or (equal type "conference")
(equal type "incollection")
(equal type "inproceedings"))
(reftex-get-bib-field "booktitle" entry "in: %s"))
(t ""))))
(setq authors (reftex-truncate authors 30 t t))
(when (reftex-use-fonts)
(put-text-property 0 (length key) 'face
(reftex-verified-face reftex-label-face
'font-lock-constant-face
'font-lock-reference-face)
key)
(put-text-property 0 (length authors) 'face reftex-bib-author-face
authors)
(put-text-property 0 (length year) 'face reftex-bib-year-face
year)
(put-text-property 0 (length title) 'face reftex-bib-title-face
title)
(put-text-property 0 (length extra) 'face reftex-bib-extra-face
extra))
(concat key "\n " authors " " year " " extra "\n " title "\n\n"))))
reftex-bib-year-face
(you can see this by switching to the*scratch*
buffer and typing "reftex-bib-year-face" followed byC-j
date
but notyear
.