Using \renewbibmacro to change ordering of items in bibliography

Question

I've spent two days of customising my references so they fit the publisher's style sheet. I've solved quite some problems thanks to previous discussions here and I've included them in my minimal working example. So if someone else is struggling with formatting their bibliography, I hope it might help them.

There are some minor problems, though, which I still can't solve and I'd be very glad if you could provide me any help.

The problem seems to be that I don't understand how \renewbibmacro (see MWE) or \newbibmacro work, not even after reading this entry. And I failed trying to create my own bst-file.

In example 1 I need (series and volume after publisher in parentheses with a full stop as separator):

Baerman, Matthew / Greville Corbett (2010): Introduction: Defectiveness: Typology and Diachrony. In: Matthew Baerman / Greville Corbett / Dunstan Brown (Hg.): Defective paradigms. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Proceedings of the British Academy. 163), 1–18.

In example 2 I need (series and volume after publisher in parentheses with a full stop as separator):

Dammel, Antje (2011): Konjugationsklassenwandel: Prinzipien des Ab-, Um- und Ausbaus verbalflexivischer Allomorphie in germanischen Sprachen. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter (Studia linguistica germanica. 103).

In example 3 I need (number in parentheses):

Fehringer, Carol (2004): How stable are Morphological Doublets? A Case Study of /schwa/ Ø Variants in Dutch and German. In: Journal of Germanic Linguistics 16 (4), 285–329.

Instead I'm getting:

Here is my MWE with my solutions so far and my attempt to solve problems 1 and 2 at the very end of the preamble marked with ???.

\documentclass[twoside]{scrbook}

\usepackage[paperwidth=17cm, paperheight=24cm, outer=2.7cm, inner=2.4cm, top=2.5cm, bottom=2.5cm,headsep=0.7cm]{geometry}
\setlength{\textheight}{19cm}
\setlength{\textwidth}{11.9cm}

\usepackage{times} %font > times
\AtBeginDocument{\fontsize{10.2}{11.9}\selectfont} %fontsize

\addtokomafont{footnote}{\fontsize{8.5bp}{10.2bp}\selectfont} %fontsize for footnotes

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}

% packages for citation and bibliography
\usepackage[babel]{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=ext-authoryear-comp,
language=autobib,
autolang=hyphen, 
doi=false,isbn=false,
url=false, 
natbib=true, 
backend=biber, 
uniquename=false, 
dashed=true,
innamebeforetitle=true, %"(eds.)" after names
maxnames=99,
]{biblatex}

%names in small caps
\renewcommand*{\mkbibnamefamily}[1]{\textsc{#1}} 
\renewcommand*{\mkbibnamegiven}[1]{\textsc{#1}} 

%slash between authors
\renewcommand*{\finalnamedelim}{\addspace \slash \addspace} 
\renewcommand*{\multinamedelim}{\addspace \slash \addspace} 

%colon between author and title
\renewcommand*{\labelnamepunct}{\addcolon\addspace} 

%slash between several places of publication
\renewcommand*{\multilistdelim}{\addslash}
\renewcommand*{\finallistdelim}{\addslash}

%remove "pages"
\DeclareFieldFormat{pages}{#1} 

%remove quotation marks with titles
\DeclareFieldFormat[article]{title}{{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{title}{{#1}} 

%remove comma after editor(s) and before "eds)
\DeclareDelimFormat{editortypedelim}{\addspace}

%names of editors before "(eds.)"
\DeclareFieldFormat{authortype}{\mkbibparens{#1}}% 
\DeclareFieldFormat{editortype}{\mkbibparens{#1}}% 
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{editortype}{\mkbibparens{#1}}

%"(eds.)" in German without plural distinction
\DefineBibliographyStrings{german}{
  editor  = {Hg\adddot},
  editors = {Hg\adddot},}

%change font size to footnotesize (see above)
\renewcommand*{\bibfont}{\footnotesize} 

%no italics
\DeclareFieldFormat{citetitle}{\normalfont{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat{title}{\normalfont{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat{maintitle}{\normalfont{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat{journaltitle}{\normalfont{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{title}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{booktitle}{\normalfont{#1}}
\DeclareFieldFormat[incollection]{editor}{\normalfont{#1}}

%change order ???
\renewbibmacro*{location+publisher+series+volume}{%
  \printlist{location}%
  \setunit*{\addcolon\space}%
  \printlist{publisher}%
  \setunit*{\addcomma\space}%
  \printlist{series}%
  \setunit*{\addcomma\space}%
  \printlist{volume}%   
  \newunit}

\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{mybib.bib}
@incollection{Baerman.2010,
 author = {Baerman, Matthew and Corbett, Greville},
 title = {Introduction: Defectiveness: Typology and Diachrony},
 pages = {1--18},
 volume = {163},
 publisher = {{Oxford University Press}},
 isbn = {978-0-19-726460-7},
 series = {Proceedings of the British Academy},
 editor = {Baerman, Matthew and Corbett, Greville and Brown, Dunstan},
 booktitle = {Defective paradigms},
 year = {2010},
 address = {Oxford}
}

@book{Dammel.2011,
 author = {Dammel, Antje},
 year = {2011},
 title = {Konjugationsklassenwandel: Prinzipien des Ab-, Um- und Ausbaus verbalflexivischer Allomorphie in germanischen Sprachen},
 keywords = {Germanische Sprachen;Verben;Allomorph},
 address = {Berlin and New York},
 volume = {103},
 publisher = {{de Gruyter}},
 isbn = {978-3-11-024034-4},
 series = {Studia linguistica germanica}
}

@article{Fehringer.2004,
 author = {Fehringer, Carol},
 year = {2004},
 title = {How stable are Morphological Doublets? A Case Study of /schwa/ {\~{}} {\O} Variants in Dutch and German},
 pages = {285--329},
 volume = {16},
 number = {4},
 issn = {1470-5427},
 journal = {Journal of Germanic Linguistics}
}  
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{mybib.bib}


\begin{document}

Such a nice text according to \citep{Baerman.2010, Dammel.2011, Fehringer.2004}.

\printbibliography

\end{document}

Answer 1

The bibmacro location+publisher+series+volume does not exist, and so (re)defining it does nothing.

With the biblatex-ext style you are using the relevant macro that prints the location, publisher and date info is called pubinstorg+location+date and we can redefine that to also print the series+number info. We then just need to make the normal series+number bibmacro do nothing so that we don't get that data twice.

Note that the correct combination of fields is series+number and not series+volume. (This is one of the small differences between classical BibTeX, where you would have used series+volume and biblatex, where series+number is correct. See e.g. Omit Vol and Issue/No?, Series not appearing in Biber natbib APA inproceedings reference, BibLaTeX: how to reverse order of volume and series?)

For the number in @articles see How to make referencing of journal's volume 4, number 2 from "4:2" to "4(2)".

Putting this together and updating your remaining code to more modern idioms (\DeclareDelimFormat, \mkbibcompletename) we get

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman]{babel}

% packages for citation and bibliography
\usepackage[autostyle]{csquotes}
\usepackage[
  backend=biber,
  style=ext-authoryear-comp,
  maxnames=99,
  uniquename=false,
  doi=false,
  isbn=false,
  url=false,
  natbib=true,
  dashed=true,
  innamebeforetitle=true,
  language=autobib,
  autolang=hyphen,
]{biblatex}

%names in small caps
\renewcommand*{\mkbibcompletename}{\textsc}

%slash between authors
\DeclareDelimFormat{finalnamedelim}{\addspace\slash\space}
\DeclareDelimAlias{multinamedelim}{finalnamedelim}

%colon between author and title
\DeclareDelimFormat[bib]{nametitledelim}{\addcolon\space}

%slash between several places of publication
\DeclareDelimFormat{multilistdelim}{\addslash}
\DeclareDelimAlias{finallistdelim}{multilistdelim}

%remove "pages"
\DeclareFieldFormat{pages}{#1}

%remove comma after editor(s) and before "eds)
\DeclareDelimFormat{editortypedelim}{\addspace}

%names of editors before "(eds.)"
\DeclareFieldFormat{authortype}{\mkbibparens{#1}}%
\DeclareFieldFormat{editortype}{\mkbibparens{#1}}%

%"(eds.)" in German without plural distinction
\DefineBibliographyStrings{german}{
  editor  = {Hg\adddot},
  editors = {Hg\adddot},}

%change font size to footnotesize (see above)
\renewcommand*{\bibfont}{\footnotesize}

%no italics or quotation marks
\DeclareFieldFormat{citetitle}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat*{title}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{maintitle}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{journaltitle}{#1}
\DeclareFieldFormat{booktitle}{#1}

\DeclareFieldFormat[article,periodical]{number}{\mkbibparens{#1}}
\renewcommand*{\volnumdelim}{\addnbspace}

\renewbibmacro*{series+number}{}

\renewbibmacro*{pubinstorg+location+date}[1]{%
  \printlist{location}%
  \iflistundef{#1}
    {\setunit*{\locdatedelim}}
    {\setunit*{\locpubdelim}}%
  \printlist{#1}%
  \setunit*{\pubdatedelim}%
  \usebibmacro{date}%
  \iffieldundef{series}
    {}
    {\setunit*{\addspace}%
     \printtext[parens]{%
       \printfield{series}%
       \setunit*{\addperiod\space}%
       \printfield{number}}}%
  \newunit}


\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@incollection{Baerman.2010,
  author    = {Baerman, Matthew and Corbett, Greville},
  title     = {Introduction: Defectiveness: Typology and Diachrony},
  editor    = {Baerman, Matthew and Corbett, Greville and Brown, Dunstan},
  booktitle = {Defective paradigms},
  year      = {2010},
  pages     = {1--18},
  isbn      = {978-0-19-726460-7},
  series    = {Proceedings of the British Academy},
  number    = {163},
  address   = {Oxford},
  publisher = {Oxford University Press},
}
@book{Dammel.2011,
  author    = {Dammel, Antje},
  year      = {2011},
  title     = {Konjugationsklassenwandel:
               Prinzipien des Ab-, Um- und Ausbaus
               verbalflexivischer Allomorphie in germanischen Sprachen},
  address   = {Berlin and New York},
  publisher = {de Gruyter},
  isbn      = {978-3-11-024034-4},
  series    = {Studia linguistica germanica},
  number    = {103},
  keywords  = {Germanische Sprachen;Verben;Allomorph},
}
@article{Fehringer.2004,
  author  = {Fehringer, Carol},
  year    = {2004},
  title   = {How Stable are Morphological Doublets?
             A Case Study of /schwa/ \textasciitilde{} Ø Variants in Dutch and German},
  pages   = {285--329},
  volume  = {16},
  number  = {4},
  issn    = {1470-5427},
  journal = {Journal of Germanic Linguistics},
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}

\begin{document}
Such a nice text according to \autocite{Baerman.2010, Dammel.2011, Fehringer.2004}.

\printbibliography
\end{document}