Announcing PowerShell Magazine author toolkit v1.0

We just announced moving PowerShell Magazine from WordPress platform to a statically generated GitHub pages based platform. We use Hugo to compile markdown content to HTML and host that on GitHub pages. With this, every article and page on PowerShell Magazine will be written as a markdown file and the theme that we implemented has certain requirement in terms of the markdown frontmatter. We expect our contributing authors to follow a set of style guidelines to ensure that articles on this site are similarly formatted and easy to follow and read. To help our authors in the authoring process and ensure our publishing process is smooth, we came up with the idea of a PowerShell module called PSMagAuthorKit. We only offer limited functionality at this point in time but have plans to extend it to add more value.

You can download this module from PowerShell gallery.

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Install-Module -Name PSMagAuthorKit

This module depends on PowerShell-Yaml module. Today, this module offers five commands.

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PS C:\> Get-Command -Module PSMagAuthorKit

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source      
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------                 
Function        Get-PSMagArticleCategory                           1.0.0.0    PSMagAuthorKit
Function        Get-PSMagArticleTag                                1.0.0.0    PSMagAuthorKit
Function        Get-PSMagAuthor                                    1.0.0.0    PSMagAuthorKit
Function        New-PSMagArticle                                   1.0.0.0    PSMagAuthorKit
Function        New-PSMagAuthorPage                                1.0.0.0    PSMagAuthorKit

Create an article draft

You create an article draft using the New-PSMagArticle command. This command has the following parameters.

Parameter NameRequired?Description
TitleYesTitle of the article.
There is no limit on size that we impose today.
You should try and limit it to not more than 50 characters.
AuthorNameYesName of the author.
DraftPathYesWhere you want to store the generated markdown file.
This is only the folder path where the .md file will be stored.
CategoryNoAn array of category names.
You can use the Get-PSMagArticleCategory command to get a list of existing categories.
TagNoAn array of article tags.
You can use the Get-PSMagArticleTag command to get a list of existing tags.

For categories and tags, you can either leave them blank or add something that you think is missing. We will review the list and let you know our decision during publishing process.

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New-PSMagArticle -Title 'This is an awesome article' -AuthorName 'Awesome Author' -DraftPath C:\Content

Do not include any hashtags in the title of the article. We will add those at the time of publishing.

Create an author page

If you are a new PowerShell Magazine author or an existing featured author, you can use the New-PSMagAuthorPage command to create an author page and share it with us for an update on the site. This command has the following parameters.

Parameter NameRequired?Description
AuthorNameYesName of the author as it should appear on PowerShell Magazine.
If you are an existing author and want to update the social media links or tagline or description,
ensure you use the Get-PSMagAuthor command to see how your name is displayed today.
While we can technically update all your articles to reflect the name of your choice, it is an overhead and requires careful updates.
DescriptionYesYour bio or your professional summary that you want readers to see.
There is no character limit but it is recommended to keep this concise.
EmailNoThis must be your email ID registered with Gravatar.
We don’t store your email ID anywhere.
We just use that in this command to retrieve your Gravatar and use it as an author image.
If you don’t have a Gravatar or want to use a different image, you can simply share that with us as a JPEG or PNG.
TaglineNoThis is the tagline that will appear under your name on the author page.
TwitterNoThis is your Twitter handle.
You should only mention the username and not the complete URL.
GitHubNoThis is your GitHub handle.
You should only mention the username and not the full URL.
FacebookNoThis is your Facebook username.
You should only mention the username and not the full URL.
LinkedInNoThis is the LinkedIn profile name.
You should only mention the profilename and not the full URL.
BlogNoThis is your blog URL.
YouTubeNoThis is your YouTube channel URL.
TwitchNoThis is your Twitch username and not the complete URL.
AuthorPagePathYesThis is the folder where you want to store the generated author page.

Whether you choose to use the Gravatar or a separate author image, you must send both author page and author image to editors@powershellmagazine.com.

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New-PSMagAuthorPage -AuthorName 'Ravikanth C' -Email 'gravatar@mydomain.world' -AuthorPagePath C:\content -Verbose

Call to action - all featured authors

Please verify your author page and use this module to generate an updated author page. We will soon start the process of a GitHub workflow for updating your author pages via a pull request.

Get a list of all existing categories

You can use Get-PSMagArticleCategory command to retrieve a list of all existing article categories from PowerShell Magazine. This command has no parameters.

Get a list of all existing tags

You can use Get-PSMagArticleTag command to retrieve a list of all existing article tags from PowerShell Magazine. This command has no parameters.

The Get-PSMagAuthor command to retrieve a list of all featured authors and their author page URLs. Use this command to retrieve your author page and verify the social links.

At this point in time, this toolkit offers the above mentioned functionality. We will be adding more features soon to make sure your authoring experience is smooth. And, if you have any feedback or changes that you want to propose, go ahead create an issue in the module’s GitHub repository.

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