How to convert apalike2 bibliography style alongside natbib package to biblatex

Question

Problem Description

This question is emanating from the comment provided by @egreg at Replacing "&" with "and" in apalike2 bibliography style alongside natbib package and citations who mentioned that the apalike2 bibliography style is now old. So I am interested in adopting the apalike2 bibliography style alongside the natbib package but this time using biblatex. Remarks: In other words, I wish to have this bibliography style in biblatex as suggested by Professor @egreg. Below is the MWE which is a very nice solution provided by @egreg to my question at Replacing "&" with "and" in apalike2 bibliography style alongside natbib package and citations:

\begin{filecontents*}{\jobname.bib}
@book{hapa:graphenum,
    author =     {F. Harary and E. M. Palmer},
    title =      {Graphical Enumeration},
    publisher =      {Academic Press},
    pages={465--523},
    year =   1973
}
@book{Knuth94:TheTeXbook,
    author =     {Knuth, Donald Ervin},
    title =      {The \TeX book},
    publisher =      {Addison-Wesley Publishing Company},
    pages={465--523},
    year =   1994,
    series =     {Computers \& Typesetting A},
    address =    {Reading, MA},
    titlenote  =        {with illustrations by Duane Bibby}
}
@book{datta2017latex,
    title={LaTeX in 24 Hours: A Practical Guide for Scientific Writing},
    author={Datta, Dilip},
    pages={465--523},
    year={2017},
    publisher={Springer}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass[12pt,openany]{book}
\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{
    colorlinks=true,
    linkcolor=blue,
    citecolor=red,

    urlcolor=yellow,
}
\begin{document}
I want this citation \cite{hapa:graphenum} to be 
\textcolor{red}{Harary and Palmer }\textcolor{black}{(\textcolor{red}{1973})}. 
I want this citation \cite{Knuth94:TheTeXbook} to be 
\textcolor{red}{Knuth }\textcolor{black}{(\textcolor{red}{1994})}.
This text is quoted from \citep{datta2017latex} should be 
(\textcolor{red}{Datta\textcolor{black}{,} 2017}).
\nocite{*}
\bibliographystyle{apalike2-and}
\bibliography{\jobname}
\end{document}

where the apalike2-and bibliography is simply the apalike2 style modified at the following line numbers:

 297                 { " et~al." * }
    298                 { " \& " * t * }    % changed from " and " for names -- BJR 10/5/89
    299               if$
329                 { " et~al." * }
330                 { " \& " * t * }    % changed from " and " for names -- BJR 10/5/89
331               if$


1018             { " et~al." * }
   1019             { " & " * s #2 "{vv~}{ll}" format.name$ * } % " and " --  BJR 10/5/89
   1020           if$

What I have tried so far

Following a comment by @Ulrike Fischer, I modified the code though the following issues have arisen (as a result of using biblatex):

1. The citations are not hyperlinked which is something I do not like, and
2. The Bibliography generated using biblatex is different from the one generated using natbib alongside apalike2 I have attached the pictures showing my problems (as a result of using biblatex):
   
   and what I am expecting to get (from natbib alongside apalike2):
   Below is my MWE:

\begin{filecontents*}{references.bib}
@book{hapa:graphenum,
    author =     {F. Harary and E. M. Palmer},
    title =      {Graphical Enumeration},
    publisher =      {Academic Press},
    pages={465--523},
    year =   1973
}
@book{Knuth94:TheTeXbook,
    author =     {Knuth, Donald Ervin},
    title =      {The \TeX book},
    publisher =      {Addison-Wesley Publishing Company},
    pages={465--523},
    year =   1994,
    series =     {Computers \& Typesetting A},
    address =    {Reading, MA},
    titlenote  =        {with illustrations by Duane Bibby}
}
@book{datta2017latex,
    title={LaTeX in 24 Hours: A Practical Guide for Scientific Writing},
    author={Datta, Dilip},
    pages={465--523},
    year={2017},
    publisher={Springer}
}
\end{filecontents*}
\documentclass[12pt,openany]{book}
\usepackage[ 
left=2.5cm,
right=2.5cm, 
top=3cm,
bottom=3cm,
headheight = 3\baselineskip,
headsep = 5mm,
a4paper
]{geometry}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand\HRule{\noindent\rule{\linewidth}{1.5pt}}
\usepackage{background}
\backgroundsetup{contents={}}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{hhline}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[backend=biber, style=apa]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{
    colorlinks=true,
    linkcolor=blue,
    citecolor=red,

    urlcolor=yellow,
}
\usepackage{showframe}
\begin{document}
\chapter*{Acknowledgements}
I want this citation \textcite{hapa:graphenum} to be \textcolor{red}{Harary and Palmer }\textcolor{black}{(\textcolor{red}{1973})}. I want this citation \textcite{Knuth94:TheTeXbook} to be \textcolor{red}{Knuth }\textcolor{black}{(\textcolor{red}{1994})}.This text is quoted from \parencite{datta2017latex} should be (\textcolor{red}{Datta\textcolor{black}{,} 2017}).
\mainmatter
\setcounter{tocdepth}{1}

\chapter{Introduction}

\backmatter

\nocite{*}
\printbibliography


\end{document}

Answer 1

Generally speaking, biblatex is usually thought to be more modern and flexible than BibTeX's .bst styles when it comes to style customisations. biblatex also offers a few features that BibTeX cannot offer (full Unicode support, sourcemapping, ...).

But if you already have a BibTeX-based setup that does exactly what you need, it is not always immediately obvious that a switch to biblatex is the best choice. You cannot use existing .bst files with biblatex, so you would have to recreate its output with biblatex. It can be quite painful to recreate every single detail of that style with biblatex - even if biblatex allows you to apply a number of modifications to your style fairly easily.

If you have some leeway in what you are prepared to accept and expect to want to use some of the more advanced features of biblatex that BibTeX does not offer, a switch to biblatex is a great idea. But if you just want exactly the same output you had with BibTeX, the time required to get that right is probably better spent elsewhere.

---

It would go beyond what a reasonably short answer on this site can provide to recreate apalike2 output with biblatex, so let me just mention a few points.

• A number of simple and common biblatex customisations are listed in Guidelines for customizing biblatex styles. Many, many more can be found on this site if you look for the specific details you are after.

• biblatex-apa's style=apa, is generally not the best base for a custom style. APA style is very complex and biblatex-apa has to do a lot of work to get it right. That means that the style is much less customisable than for example the standard biblatex styles.

• The different extent of the link targets in biblatex are a common complaint. There are many questions and answers about them on this site. The best solution for your use case will depend on the style you use. Some relevant links are hyperlink name with biblatex authoryear (biblatex 1.4b), \textcite macro produces "Author (year)" correctly but colours first paren with hyperref, Problem with code for fully linked citations with biblatex-apa when citing the same name twice in a row (BibLaTeX Colors And Links Only The Year Not The Rest Of The Citation), Inconsistent bracket color with citet and citep