LaTeX Beamer - How to highlight a different author in the footer in each slide?

Question

I'm writing a beamer with different authors.

\author{Author 1 \\ Author 2 \\ Author 3 \\ Author 4}

I have a template footer that looks like this :

\setbeamertemplate{footline}
{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
    leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{author in head/foot}
    \leavevmode{\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}%
      \insertshortauthor}
    \hfill
   \insertdate
    \hfill%
    {\insertframenumber/\inserttotalframenumber}%
\end{beamercolorbox}%
}

I'd like to put in bold a certain author in different slides (who talks during the presentation) but I don't know how to change the footer to make something that would help me with a single command at the beginning of the frame make it understand that I'd like a certain author to be highlighted.

Answer 1

You could change the short author between frames:

\documentclass{beamer}

\author[\textbf{Author 1} Author 2 Author 3 Author 4]{Author 1 \\ Author 2 \\ Author 3 \\ Author 4}

\setbeamertemplate{footline}
{%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.5ex,dp=1.125ex,%
    leftskip=.3cm,rightskip=.3cm plus1fil]{author in head/foot}
    \leavevmode{\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}%
      \insertshortauthor}
    \hfill
   \insertdate
    \hfill%
    {\insertframenumber/\inserttotalframenumber}%
\end{beamercolorbox}%
}


\begin{document}
    
\begin{frame}
    abc
\end{frame} 

\author[Author 1 \textbf{Author 2} Author 3 Author 4]{}

\begin{frame}
    abc
\end{frame} 
    
\end{document}