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Front Matter

 

This chapter lists the sequence of pages that comprise a book’s front matter. Numbered pages in the front matter use roman numerals i, ii, iii… An author can test different settings by pressing the PDF options button on the book’s trail page. To use a form to edit the descriptive metadata used in the front matter, such as a blurb or halftitle page logo, add the following directive to the trail page:

(:bookmetadata:)

1.  Publisher’s blurb

The optional publisher’s blurb consists of a short paragraph about the author or the work (optional), followed by a series of quotes praising the genius of the author and the brilliance of the work. To include a blurb page or pages, add the following to the book’s trail page (the about is optional):

(:blurb:)
(:about: Suspendisse at fringilla libero. Aenean venenatis nibh... :)

Wikipublisher will look for a page in the current group called PublisherBlurb and print the about paragraph if present, followed by “Praise for Title of Book”, followed by the contents of the blurb page. Alternatively, the author can use the following variant to change the blurb page used, use a phrase other than “Praise for”, or both:

(:blurb: Testimonials "Readers Love" :)

Authors can lay out a series of short reviews using the quotation markup. This is illustrated in Sample publisher blurb text, from the blurb for the New Zealand edition of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Note the use of emphasis markup within the attribution to turn emphasis off.

;';john burnside;', New Statesman, ''Books of the Year''; To describe
''Wolf Hall'' as a historical novel is like calling ''Moby-Dick'' a book on
fishing and, this year, the Booker judges did get it absolutely right.
Mantel is an astonishing writer: a prose stylist who combines absolute
precision with a compelling sense of flow, and a marvellously subtle
observer of character. ''Wolf Hall'' casts a spell that makes us think long
and hard about order, law and the workings of power

2.  Halftitle page

The halftitle page prints a logo (optional), the title (the title of the book’s trail page), and the date (defaults to the date and time of printing). The page layout is controlled using metadata settings on the book’s trail page.

The author can specify a logo (an image) using wiki page text variable markup (:graphics: image-link:) where image-link is one of:

• Attach:file-name.ext for extensions of kind jpg, png or gif
• [[Attach:file-name.ext -> Attach:file-name.pdf]] to use a vector graphics file
• http://image-url.ext

If the author specifies image alt text, using the "alt text" markup, the logo is treated as a “frontispiece” and prints on the verso page facing the title page.

The author can modify the title using the title="Book Title" argument in the (:typeset-book:) directive. The author can modify the page layout using the metadata arguments shown in Halftitle page layout. Note the spelling for cover=centre. The halftitle is optional and may be omitted with halftitle=off. By default, the title is page i; this can be changed to make the halftitle page i using halftitle=count.

An administrator can modify the date format by redefining $CurrentTimeFmt in local/config.php, before loading the Wikipublisher extensions. An administrator can define a specific date and time (or no date) by redefining $CurrentTime in local/config.php, before loading the Wikipublisher extensions. For example, to print the current month and year set:

    $CurrentTimeFmt = '%B %Y';

The halftitle page settings also apply to the layout of the title page, covered in Title page. The date settings also apply to the date printed on the title verso, covered in Title verso page.

3.  Halftitle verso page

By convention, the halftitle verso page lists other works by the author, or other works in the series of which the current work is part. If Wikipublisher finds a page called $Group.BookHalftitleVerso or Site.BookHalftitleVerso, it prints the contents on the halftitle verso page; otherwise, the page is blank. $Group is the name of the group in which the book’s trail page is defined.

The cover metadata argument controls the alignment of text on the page. One widely-used convention is to set the author name in small caps and set titles in italics and indented. This is illustrated in Sample halftitle verso page.

';books by janet frame;'

(:div class=indent:)
''To the Is-Land''

''An Angel at My Table''

''The Envoy From Mirror City''
(:divend:)

4.  Title page

The title page prints the book’s title, subtitle, author and publisher. The author can modify the default title, subtitle and author settings by using the title="Book Title", the subtitle="Book Subtitle" and the surtitle="Author Name" arguments in the (:typeset-book:) directive.

By default, the publisher field is empty. The author can set the publisher field by using the (:description:) directive on the book’s trail page:

(:description Publisher Name:)

5.  Title verso page

The title verso page prints publishing information and a legal notice. This consists of:

• author
• title
• subtitle
• the $Group.BookPrintHeader or Site.BookPrintHeader page
• the $WPTypeset variable
• a some (or all) rights reserved notice, followed by an optional list of rights
• Copyright (optional) followed by © year followed by $WikiTitle, $WPLocation
• the $PageUrl of the book’s trail page
• an optional year caption (e.g., “First published: May 2009”)
• the day of print or date caption followed by the date or today’s date
• an optional ISBN and optional second ISBN (e.g., for an ebook version)

Title verso page layout describes how an author can control the title verso page layout by setting options on the book’s trail page. The ISBN must be enclosed in [=…=] markup to prevent automatic “smartening” of the hyphens.

An administrator can redefine $WPTypeset, $WPLocation and $WikiTitle in the local/config.php file. Typical values used in the rights page text variable are:

• none — generates an “All rights reserved” notice
• gfdl — for the GNU free documentation licence (some rights reserved)
• cc by(-nc)?(-(nd|sa))? — one of the 6 Creative Commons licences
• (none|gfdl|cc) "alternate text" — text printed after the rights notice

6.  Dedication

A dedication is optional. If present, the dedication alignment matches that of the halftitle and title pages. The author can specify a dedication using a page text variable on the book’s trail page:

(:dedication: This book is dedicated to my goldfish:)

7.  Epigraph

An epigraph (also known as an inspiration page) is optional. The author can specify an epigraph using a page text variable on the book’s trail page (attribution — author name and title of source — is optional):

(:epigraph: The quote text -- Author Name "Title of Source" :)

8.  Contents pages

Wikipublisher generates and prints a book table of contents automatically. Contents page options lists the additional kinds of contents pages, which can be produced by adding arguments to the (:typeset-book:) directive on the trail page.

9.  Preface

If the Main Matter specifies a preface chapter, Wikipublisher prints this before (the default) or after (using (:typeset-book preface=off:)) the contents pages.

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