Change bibliography style with biblatex to ieee

Question

I'm trying to change the bibliography style of the template linked below. Such that the citings are in numerical order instead of alphabetical.

https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/tu-delft-unofficial-report-template-v1-dot-3-1/yxmgyfvwrykz

The template uses biblatex, so I can't use the following command.

\bibliographystyle{ieeetr}

However, I was expecting the following line to work when added to the report.tex file. But this still clashes with biblatex.

\usepackage[style=ieee]{biblatex}

Making it more specific: Main file:

\documentclass{layout/test}
\usepackage{pdfpages} % Insert .pdf directly as pages
\renewcommand{\deg}{\si{\degree}\xspace}
\begin{document}
\input{chapter-2}
\printbibliography[title=References]
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{References}
\end{document}

And using test.cls as:

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}
\LoadClass[10pt,oneside]{book}
\RequirePackage[hidelinks]{hyperref} % Improved referencing/links
\RequirePackage{biblatex}   % Manages bibliography

%% Commands to define the title, author, etc
\renewcommand{\title}[1]{%
    \def\@title{#1}%
    \hypersetup{pdftitle=#1}} % Adds it to metadata

\renewcommand*\author[1]{%
    \def\@author{#1}%
    \hypersetup{pdfauthor=#1}} % Adds it to metadata

\newcommand*\subtitle[1]{\def\@subtitle{#1}}
\newcommand*\coverimage[1]{\def\@cover@image{#1}}
\newcommand\subject[1]{\def\@subject{#1}}

%% Setting up \autoref to use uppercase
\def\sectionautorefname{Section}
\def\chapterautorefname{Chapter}
\let\subsectionautorefname\sectionautorefname
\let\subsubsectionautorefname\sectionautorefname

%% Adding bibliography file and adjusting spacing
\addbibresource{report.bib} % Specifying the .bib file

Answer 1

Would've rather made a comment, but sadly I can't.

I am the author of this template and I am glad the problem got resolved. I completely agree with moewe that the implementation of this is flawed. I had come to that realisation a while ago, and tried to address it in the documentation. I have now fixed this (as of v1.4.1) and moved all bibliography commands to the main file. As such, the report.tex file now contains:

%% Setting up the bibliography
\usepackage{biblatex}
\addbibresource{report.bib}

A document created by clicking the 'Open in Overleaf' button in the documentation or from the Github files will include this change immediately. I have also published the changes to the Overleaf gallery, which awaits publication.

You mentioned in a comment that 'hopefully someone else is able to break it down further' in regard to the template. I completely understand that comment, but I am also hoping you will contact me if you do encounter anything else. I have never created a template for a bigger audience before. I definitely can't do everything right the first time, and I hope you understand :-)

Answer 2

Your template's class file has it's biblatex style hard coded in. layout/tudelft-report.cls just loads biblatex without any other options

\RequirePackage{biblatex}   % Manages bibliography

so you will end up with the default numeric style.

According to the documentation of your template (https://dzwaneveld.github.io/report/faq.html) the idea is that users should modify their layout/tudelft-report.cls and change the style there. You could for example replace the \RequirePackage{biblatex} with

\RequirePackage[style=ieee]{biblatex}   % Manages bibliography

I don't think this is the best interface for a template because it does not clearly separate user-definable parts (like the bibliography style) and internal implementation of the layout and macros. This is true even more so for the \addbibresource{report.bib} call in the .cls file.