Composr Tutorial: Authors

Written by Chris Graham
Authors are entities that literally are recorded as having authored some entry on your website. Authors are distinct from normal member profiles- in fact, there is nothing to say an author of an entry is even present on your website (it may have been submitted by a member, but authored by a company, for example). i.e. There is no guarantee that an author of an entry is going to have a member account on the system.

The following types of content support the author system:
  • news
  • downloads
Association between authors and members is supported, either automatically by sharing a common name (author=username) or by manual configuration. A link to a member's associated author profile (if it exists) is presented on said member's profile screen (Conversr only).

Table of contents

  1. Composr Tutorial: Authors
    1. Setting up an Author
    2. View a Author
    3. Merging Authors
    4. Deleting an Author
    5. A note about security
    6. See also

Setting up an Author

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Defining an (my) author profile

Defining an (my) author profile

(Click to enlarge)

Manage author(s) from Admin Zone > Content > Authors.

There is a permission to allow members to setup author profiles that bind to their own member profile. If the 'setup author' page was not entered from a link to setup/edit a referenced author, it will default to defining/editing the author of the username of the current user: it is through this that a member sets up their own author profile.

To set up a profile for another author, it is first necessary to add some author supporting content, and then to choose to set up the author from the Admin Zone author management page.

View a Author

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Viewing an author profile

Viewing an author profile

(Click to enlarge)

Links are placed on author-supporting content view pages to view details of the content author, as well as in the Conversr member profile of a member with a bound author profile.

The 'view an author' screen will display the author profile, as well as downloads that they are set as the author of.

Merging Authors

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Managing/Merging authors

Managing/Merging authors

(Click to enlarge)

The Admin Zone provides a screen for merging authors. This feature is provided as it is likely that different users will refer to authors with slightly different names at the point of submission.

Deleting an Author

You can delete any author that has been set up by going to set it up, similar to how editing any other content in Composr.
Authors that have not been set up can not be deleted as they only exist due to references by other content.

A note about security

If you grant members the Conversr "Change own username" privilege (or equivalent in a 3rd party forum driver), then you may want to deny access to the "Set own author profile" privilege to regular members, as otherwise members could hijack any non-member-associated author accounts to renaming their account to match the name of that account.


See also


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