Author merging and linking: compound name forms

OK, that's one I hadn't considered. Let me think about it a bit. You can't really use merging for this since merging removes all the other entries from the database. For this case we need some kind of linking to indicate this author is also known as...

Just an update on this issue...

I've added another column to the biblio_contributor_data table called "aka" (also known as) which will form links between author names such that searching or filtering on one of the linked author ids will return the publications for all the related author ids as well.

It's not fully functional yet, right now I've just updated the author edit form to include the linking capability, but none of the searches or filters take advantage of this yet. I'll update this issue when it is fully functional.

Ron.

Linking is functional now in 6.x-1.2

Sorry, maybe I'm just being oblivious, but I can't figure out how to link authors via the author edit form (admin/settings/biblio/author/list/xx/edit/) I don't see any new "aka" field or other new features that weren't there in 6.x-1.1

Hi Dane,

I presume you ran update.php after installation (that creates the aka column), the "merge" and "link" fieldsets only show up if there are candidate authors in the database. "Candidates" are found by comparing the current (the author being edited) lastname field with the "Full Name" field of all the other authors and if the other author full name field contains or is the same as the current authors lastname field then that other author becomes a candidate for linking or merging.

So the bottom line is that if there are no authors similar to the one you are editing, then you will not see anything related to linking or merging on the author edit form.

The best way to test it is to create two publications with last names the same but first names or initials that differ..

Ron.

Ah, thank you- so in the given example of linking the two names of a recently-married author, this would only work if they also changed their middle name to their maiden name, for instance. Otherwise (if they only share their first name) they cannot be linked. I suppose you could change their names temporarily to enable the link, and then change them back, which is probably the solution I'll go with.

Anyway, I understand that this is a work in progress so I certainly won't complain :) Thanks again.

Doh! That was a bit of an oversight on my part since I just assumed a hyphenated name; Smith becoming Smith-Jones. It looks like there will have to be another release shortly anyway since there is a bit of a bug in the preview code, so I'll change it such that you will be presented with a drop down list of all the authors in the Link section, and the Link section will always be visible.

Ron.

Sorry to raise the bones to the surface, but it seemed like the best issue to connect with.

Running 6.x-2.x we are having the following issue:

1. Author David Jones is shown as being linked to their former name, David Evans-Jones
2. A biblio view is using the Biblio:Dupal User ID as an argument to pull the author's publications into a custom profile page rendered through Panels.
3. The view displays all the author's works under their Drupal UID, but none of the linked works.

What can we do from here?

Thanks in advance!
JB

changing title to suit original post better.

This version is no longer maintained. If this issue is still relevant to the Drupal 7 version, please re-open and provide details.