Cite only the first author for ibidem citations

Question

When using the authoryear-icomp style of BibLaTeX, I would like to cite only the first author of a multi-author work, even if that is not unique, when the citation is a repeated (e.g. ibidem) one. My reasoning is that the ibidem makes it possible to uniquely identify the reference anyway.

I have not been able to find a way to do so, but suspect that it is possible given the incredible flexibility of BibLaTeX (I have recently started using it and love it so far). Is it possible to achieve the above?

Consider the following MWE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[%
    backend = biber,
    style = authoryear-icomp,
    giveninits = true,
    ibidpage = true,
    maxbibnames = 99,
    maxcitenames = 2,
    uniquename = init,
    useprefix = true
  ]{biblatex}
% always have first name, last name in bibliography
\DeclareNameAlias{sortname}{given-family}
\addbibresource{references.bib}

\begin{filecontents}{references.bib}
  @misc{keyA,
    title = {Title A},
    author = {First, Author and Second, Author and Third, Author},
    year = 2019,
  }

  @misc{keyB,
    title = {Title B},
    author = {First, Author and Fourth, Author and Fifth, Author},
    year = 2019,
  }
\end{filecontents}


\begin{document}

  We first note that~\textcite{keyA} and~\textcite{keyB} did a lot of work.
  The latter wrote \enquote{important stuff}, so we quote~\textcite{keyB} again.

  \printbibliography

\end{document}

Which renders something like:

Instead of rendering First, Fourth, et al. (ibid.) for the last citation, I would like it to render First et al. (ibid.). The reader would then just find the previous citation and be able to uniquely identify the right reference. Is this possible using BibLaTeX? Thanks in advance for any pointers and help.

Answer 1

It isn't particularly pretty, but it is possible.

We can obtain the desired effect by replacing

\printnames{labelname}

in the textcite bibmacro with

\ifthenelse{\ifciteibid\AND\NOT\iffirstonpage}
  {\printnames[][1-1]{labelname}}
  {\printnames{labelname}}%

Since the textcite macro for authoryear-icomp is quite long, the result might look a bit daunting.

Unfortunately, it is not enough to simply inject a different value for maxnames into the citation with \AtEveryCitekey as I initially hoped, since maxname values can be overridden by the uniquelist-maxname value calculated by the backend (for the unqiuelist option), this happens at a very late stage so that the standard hooks offer no way to interfere.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{filecontents}

\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[%
    backend = biber,
    style = authoryear-icomp,
    giveninits = true,
    ibidpage = true,
    maxbibnames = 99,
    maxcitenames = 2,
    uniquename = init,
    useprefix = true
  ]{biblatex}

\DeclareNameAlias{sortname}{given-family}

\makeatletter
\renewbibmacro*{textcite}{%
  \iffieldequals{namehash}{\cbx@lasthash}
    {\iffieldundef{shorthand}
       {\ifthenelse{\iffieldequals{labelyear}{\cbx@lastyear}\AND
                    \(\value{multicitecount}=0\OR\iffieldundef{postnote}\)}
          {\setunit{\addcomma}%
           \usebibmacro{cite:extradate}}
          {\setunit{\compcitedelim}%
           \usebibmacro{cite:labeldate+extradate}%
           \savefield{labelyear}{\cbx@lastyear}}}
       {\setunit{\compcitedelim}%
        \usebibmacro{cite:shorthand}%
        \global\undef\cbx@lastyear}}
    {\ifnameundef{labelname}
       {\iffieldundef{shorthand}
          {\usebibmacro{cite:label}%
           \setunit{%
             \global\booltrue{cbx:parens}%
             \printdelim{nonameyeardelim}\bibopenparen}%
           \ifnumequal{\value{citecount}}{1}
             {\usebibmacro{prenote}}
             {}%
           \ifthenelse{\ifciteibid\AND\NOT\iffirstonpage}
             {\usebibmacro{cite:ibid}}
             {\usebibmacro{cite:labeldate+extradate}}}
          {\usebibmacro{cite:shorthand}}}
       {\ifthenelse{\ifciteibid\AND\NOT\iffirstonpage}
          {\printnames[][1-1]{labelname}}
          {\printnames{labelname}}%
        \setunit{%
          \global\booltrue{cbx:parens}%
          \printdelim{nameyeardelim}\bibopenparen}%
        \ifnumequal{\value{citecount}}{1}
          {\usebibmacro{prenote}}
          {}%
        \iffieldundef{shorthand}
          {\iffieldundef{labelyear}
             {\usebibmacro{cite:label}}
             {\ifthenelse{\ifciteibid\AND\NOT\iffirstonpage}
                {\usebibmacro{cite:ibid}}
                {\usebibmacro{cite:labeldate+extradate}}}%
           \savefield{labelyear}{\cbx@lastyear}}
          {\usebibmacro{cite:shorthand}%
           \global\undef\cbx@lastyear}}%
     \stepcounter{textcitecount}%
     \savefield{namehash}{\cbx@lasthash}}%
  \setunit{%
    \ifbool{cbx:parens}
      {\bibcloseparen\global\boolfalse{cbx:parens}}
      {}%
    \textcitedelim}}
\makeatother


\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@misc{keyA,
  title  = {Title A},
  author = {First, Author and Second, Author and Third, Author},
  year   = 2019,
}
@misc{keyB,
  title  = {Title B},
  author = {First, Author and Fourth, Author and Fifth, Author},
  year   = 2019,
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
  We first note that~\textcite{keyA} and~\textcite{keyB} did a lot of work.
  The latter wrote \enquote{important stuff}, so we quote~\textcite{keyB} again.

  \printbibliography
\end{document}

---

If you don't like long redefinitions, you can of course use xpatch to patch the macro instead

\usepackage{xpatch}
\xpatchbibmacro{textcite}
  {\printnames{labelname}}
  {\ifthenelse{\ifciteibid\AND\NOT\iffirstonpage}
     {\printnames[][1-1]{labelname}}
     {\printnames{labelname}}}
  {}{}

The pros and cons of patching vs. redefining are discussed at Biblatex's bibmacros, bibliography drivers, formats - patch or redefine?.