The ZENPRESS Author Management System
It's time to talk briefly about how we deal with authors in ZENPRESS, because we've added a new Author Management System that's rather intriguing. When we import author information from either the .bio file or from the articles themselves, a sub-database of authors is created or updated in the publication's internal database.
The author information database consists of a special database for each author. Each author's database has a list of all the articles the author has written, titles, issue name, and links to the articles. If, in scanning the bio, we were able to find an email address, ZENPRESS places an email address into the author's database. If, in scanning the bio, ZENPRESS was able to find the author's Web site, it places the URL into the author's database.
Likewise, ZENPRESS scans the masthead for that issue and, if there's an entry in the masthead for the author with a title (e.g., Contributing Editor), that title is also placed into the author's database.
Finally, in each author database, are placed "okay to change" Boolean operators that say that it's okay for the author himself or herself to override these entries. This becomes important because, later on, we'll determine whether or not the author has chosen to override any of the automatically generated information (derived as a result of scanning bios). If so, the next time we do a journal render, if the author has overridden his or her own biography or email address, our automatic system will respect that and will not overwrite the author's provided information from the bio scan.
Once all the author databases are updated, a master database of authors is also updated in the ZATZ central database. From that master author database comes the ability to generate individual author Home Pages on the main ZATZ site.
On the ZATZ site is a Web page that lists all of the authors and contains links a page for each one. Clicking on any author name takes you to a special Author Home Page that ZENPRESS constructs for that author. That Author Home Page lists the author's name, the author's bio, if available an email address and a Web address, as well as a list of all the articles that the author has written for our various publications. There is a single, one-line Smart Style Object used on that page to pull in the index of authors for that page.
It's pretty amazing to see all the authors who've contributed to our journals. We're also in the process of adding the capability for authors to change their own Author Home Page.
Via a simple Web form, the authors will be able to make changes to their own page. For example, each author will be able to provide a URL for a photograph, allowing ZENPRESS to display the author's picture on the Author Home Page for that particular author. The author will be able to change his or her bio, his or her email address, and his or her Web site using the same method.
We'll also provide the ability to let the author add sections that contain additional information and Web links. For example, an author may decide to add favorite links, or other articles that the author has written for publishers other than ZATZ, or some more detailed description about himself or herself.
This is all built dynamically into the Author Management System. Throughout the Author Management System, ZENPRESS provides a special-purpose Home Page builder that builds Home Pages and complete author listings from a publication dynamically.
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