.. _author_guide:


=========================
Custom Author Model Guide
=========================

By default the ``authors`` of a story is a many to many field using
``auth.User`` as the model. However you can also specify your own
custom author model to be used. There are some things you will need
to know about change the author model.

1. The initial migration using ``South`` was changed to allow for
this custom many to many field be possible.

2. If your intent is to use a custom model, but have yet to
defined this model, your inital migration uses ``auth.User`` as
the authors many to many model. Later, when your custom author
model is created, you will have to determine your self if the
database table that was created needs to be changed as well.

This is usually the case if your custom model is named anything
other the ``User``. For example, the table name created using ``auth.User``
would be **stories_storyauthor** with 2 fields **user_id** and **story_id**.
While **story_id** is obvious, **user_id** is the field that may
change depending on the model name. The example app that is part of
``stories`` defines a authors model named ``BasicAuthor``. The table
name is still **stories_storyauthor**, however, the columnes it
needs are **basicauthor_id** and **story_id**.

The initial ``South`` migration, takes this in account and will
supply the name of the custom field for you. However if you changed the
``authors`` many to many model after the migration, you will need
to determine the new column names and manually adjust them as needed.