Pling!

Migrating from WordPress’s “Multiple Authors” plugin to “Co-authors” plugin

One thing WordPress lacks support for by default is having entries by multiple authors, yet this is something that happens quite regularly with Nouse. My predecessor sorted this by using the Multiple Authors plugin, but this wasn’t quite the best solution. It required you to type the full name of the user you wanted to add manually into one of the meta fields.

The co-authors plugin appears to solve the same problem, but has a nicer interface (a drop down box in the Write Post screen) and means author archives also include stories they were an additional author on.

Obviously, the database storage between the two varies slightly differently, and we don’t want to lose the metadata from our 4 years of backlog. This simple SQL query will convert posts from the old format to the new format:

INSERT INTO wp_postmeta(post_id,meta_key,meta_value) (SELECT m.post_id,'_coauthor',u.ID FROM wp_postmeta AS m,wp_users AS u WHERE m.meta_key='other_author' AND m.meta_value = u.user_login);

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Help me with my final year project

So, I’m doing my final year project on a system called Tapas which is a way to log in to touch screen mobile phones and PDAs using a series of taps (a “secret knock” as it were) instead of a password or PIN. The software was created by a student last year and this year I’m doing an evaluation on how good the system is, basically.

So, if you’re interested in helping me out, and:

* You have a Windows Mobile powered device with a touchscreen
* You don’t mind Tapas being installed and activated for 3 weeks (there is a backup password feature too, but the idea is you only use that if you can’t tap in)
* You’re free to keep a diary of circumstances where you’ve used the device and particular good/bad experiences (at least once a day as a high level over view, but more in-depth about specific experiences will be useful)

There will also be some kind of reward (dependent on how much the department approves) for your troubles.

If you’re interested, drop me an e-mail at cjn503@york.ac.uk, or get in touch with me some other way.

Thanks!

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