Change ref format for subfigures

Question

I am using the captionand subcaption package with floatrow and would like to change how references with \ref are formated.

First here is my captionsetup so far:

\DeclareCaptionSubType[alph]{figure}
\captionsetup[subfigure]{labelformat=brace,justification=centerlast}
\captionsetup{subrefformat=brace}

What I would like to achieve is the following (all for subfigures):

1. the label should be \alph), e.g. a)
2. a \subref{subfigureLabel} or \ref{subfigureLabel} should return basically the label: \alph), e.g. a)
3. a \ref{compositeFigure} should return the prefix, the figurenumber, a space, followed by the label (including the brace), e.g. 'Figure 1.1 a)', (basically append the label of the subfigure with a space).

As you can see I solved (not quite satisfactory) 1. and 2., however I am struggling with three. First of I could not find anything like refformat, however there are good reasons for the existence of subrefformat. However I want to use \subref just for the short version (see 2.), so I can't use that. Furthermore I would like to know if there is an option to set the label and subref format with one command (I think it is reasonable and common to define them equally).

P.S.: I have seen https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/122306/19326, however it is a) for subfig and b) looks messier/more complicated than what I hope for but if that is what it takes...

Answer 1

I am not sure if this is the desired result, but this was too long for a comment. The label format for subfigures is set to simple (just the counter with no parenthesis); \thesubfigure is redefined to include the parenthesis and then \p@subfigure (the prefix used when cross-referencing subfigures) is redefined to be the representation for the figure counter followed by a non-breakable space:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{subcaption}
\usepackage{graphicx}

\DeclareCaptionSubType[alph]{figure}
\captionsetup[subfigure]{labelformat=simple,justification=centerlast}

\renewcommand\thesubfigure{\alph{subfigure})}
\makeatletter
\renewcommand\p@subfigure{\thefigure~}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\chapter{Test chapter}

A reference to the figure:~\ref{fig:test}

A reference to the first subfigure:~\ref{sfig:testa}

A subreference to the first subfigure:~\subref{sfig:testa}

A reference to the second subfigure:~\ref{sfig:testb}

A subreference to the second subfigure:~\subref{sfig:testb}

\begin{figure}[!ht]
\begin{subfigure}{0.5\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=4cm]{example-image-a}
\caption{a subfigure}
\label{sfig:testa}
\end{subfigure}%
\begin{subfigure}{0.5\textwidth}
\centering
\includegraphics[height=4cm]{example-image-b}
\caption{another subfigure}
\label{sfig:testb}
\end{subfigure}
\caption{a figure with two subfigures}
\label{fig:test}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

Answer 2

This solution introduces \sublabel to reformat \ref by redefining \@currentlabel.

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{floatrow}%

%\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{subcaption}
%\usepackage{subfig}
\usepackage{float}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\sublabel}[1]{\protected@edef\@currentlabel{\thefigure(\thesubfigure)}\label{#1}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\noindent
Citation test - Figure \ref{figure}

\noindent
\ref{figure_1} and \subref{figure_1}\newline
\captionsetup{subrefformat=parens}%
\ref{figure_2} and \subref{figure_2}

\begin{figure}[!ht]
\centering
    \begin{subfigure}{0.5\textwidth}            
            \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{example-image-a}
            \caption{Caption 1}

            \sublabel{figure_1}
    \end{subfigure}%
    %\qquad
     %add desired spacing between images, e. g. ~, \quad, \qquad etc.
      %(or a blank line to force the subfigure onto a new line)
    \begin{subfigure}{0.5\textwidth}
            \centering
            \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{example-image-b}
            \caption{Caption 2}

            \sublabel{figure_2}
    \end{subfigure}
    \caption{Caption of the figure}\label{figure}

\end{figure}

\end{document}