Publications Management¶

This chapter explains how to manage publication entries in the LabPress administration panel. Publications are used to display research papers, journal articles, and other academic outputs on the public website.

The guide focuses on practical operations. It describes how to add, edit, delete, and organize publication records through the admin interface, and how these records appear on the frontend.

1. Overview¶

The Publications module provides a simple way to maintain a list of papers and journal articles. Each publication consists of a title, authors, journal name, external link, and sort order. These entries are displayed on the public Publications page and are also used in the Latest Publications section of the homepage.

All publication data is stored in the publications table. The admin panel provides a dedicated management page that allows administrators to maintain the list without editing the database directly.

Administrator Publications Panels

2. Accessing the Publications Manager¶

The Publications manager is available from the admin sidebar under Publications.

Access to this page requires the publications permission. Administrator accounts with the all permission can also access it. Users without the required permission will see a permission error message.

To open the page, click Publications in the sidebar. The page displays a table containing all existing publication entries.

3. Understanding the Publication List¶

The publication list shows the following columns:

• Title – the title of the paper or article.
• Authors – the list of authors as stored in the database.
• Journal – the name of the journal or publication venue.
• Actions – buttons for editing and deleting the entry.

The list is ordered by the sort_order field, with lower values appearing first. Entries with the same sort order may appear in the order they were inserted.

If no publications have been added, the page displays a “No data” message.

Administrator Publications List

4. Adding a Publication¶

To add a new publication:

1. Open the Publications page.
2. Click the Add Publication button at the top of the table.
3. In the modal form that appears, fill in the following fields:

1. Click Save.

The new entry is inserted into the database and immediately appears in the publication list and on the public website.

Administrator Publications Add Page

5. Editing a Publication¶

To modify an existing publication:

1. Find the entry you want to change in the publication list.
2. Click the Edit button in that row.
3. The same modal form opens with the current values filled in.
4. Update the title, authors, journal, link, or sort order.
5. Click Save.

The changes are saved immediately and reflected on the frontend after the next page load.

6. Deleting a Publication¶

To remove a publication:

1. Find the entry in the publication list.
2. Click the Delete button in that row.
3. Confirm the deletion when prompted.

The entry is permanently removed from the database. There is no undo, so use this operation with care.

If a publication should no longer be displayed but you want to keep the record for future use, consider changing its sort order or temporarily removing the public link instead of deleting it.

7. Controlling Display Order¶

The display order of publications is controlled by the Sort field. Lower values appear first.

The homepage and the public Publications page query the database using the following ordering rule:

ORDER BY sort_order ASC

This means that a publication with sort order 0 will appear before one with sort order 10.

When adding several new publications, it is useful to assign sort values in increments of ten, such as 10, 20, 30. This leaves space to insert additional entries later without renumbering the entire list.

To reorder publications, edit each entry and change its sort value as needed.

8. Frontend Display¶

Publication entries are displayed in two public locations.

8.1 Publications Page¶

The public Publications page lists all publication entries in a simple, readable format. Each entry shows the title, authors, and journal. If an external link is provided, a button labeled Read or Read More links to the original article or DOI.

The page uses the publications.php template and applies the publication_list_title filter to each title before rendering. This allows plugins to modify the displayed title if necessary.

8.2 Homepage Latest Publications¶

The homepage also shows a limited number of recent publications in the Latest Publications section. The homepage loads publications asynchronously from the API and displays only the first five entries.

The homepage section includes a View More button that links to the full Publications page.

Publications Fronted Page

9. Multilingual Considerations¶

Publication titles, author lists, and journal names are stored as raw text in the database. The current core does not translate these fields automatically.

If you need to display publications in multiple languages, you have two practical options:

• Store the publication information in the desired primary language and let the rest of the site switch languages while the publication details remain unchanged.
• Use a plugin or custom filter to manage translations for publication titles if multilingual publication display becomes a requirement.

The Dynamic Multi-Language plugin does not currently provide a dedicated translation tab for publications, but custom translations can be extended through the plugin’s filter system if needed.

10. Next Steps¶

After managing publications, you may want to continue with:

• Slides – manage homepage carousel slides.
• Tools – manage bioinformatics tools and software.
• Projects – manage research projects and portfolios.
• Research News – manage laboratory news and announcements.
• Site Settings – configure the homepage sections that display publications.