If you run a blog with multiple authors, it’s a good idea to have a list of all authors on a page with a few lines about them and a link to their twitter profile. I found many large blogs not following that. Few of those who follow includes Techcrunch.

Running a multiple author WordPress blog? Lets get your authors page setup real quick. I have written a flexible WordPress page template that will support most themes. To be sure, I tested it on WordPress default theme. If you follow WordPress default theme pattern, you will have no trouble setting this up.

The page template lists all authors ordered by author ID. The format of a listing is author name followed by author description and gravatar which is followed by a link to recent post and finally links to social media profiles. The page template supports twitter, facebook, linkedin, digg and flickr.

Example Listing with Sample Text and only Flickr Link

Installation Instructions

1. Download and extract authors.zip
2. Copy and paste authors.php file to your theme directory
3. Copy and paste the following code on the top of your functions.php file in your theme directory (this will add social media profile fields on edit profile page)

   <?php
   add_action('show_user_profile', 'wpsplash_extraProfileFields');
   add_action('edit_user_profile', 'wpsplash_extraProfileFields');
   add_action('personal_options_update', 'wpsplash_saveExtraProfileFields');
   add_action('edit_user_profile_update', 'wpsplash_saveExtraProfileFields');
   
   function wpsplash_saveExtraProfileFields($userID) {
   
   	if (!current_user_can('edit_user', $userID)) {
   		return false;
   	}
   
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'twitter', $_POST['twitter']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'facebook', $_POST['facebook']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'linkedin', $_POST['linkedin']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'digg', $_POST['digg']);
   	update_usermeta($userID, 'flickr', $_POST['flickr']);
   }
   
   function wpsplash_extraProfileFields($user)
   {
   ?>
   	<h3>Connect Information</h3>
   
   	<table class='form-table'>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='twitter'>Twitter</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='twitter' id='twitter' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('twitter', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your Twitter username. http://www.twitter.com/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='facebook'>Facebook</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='facebook' id='facebook' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('facebook', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your Facebook username/alias. http://www.facebook.com/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='linkedin'>LinkedIn</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='linkedin' id='linkedin' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('linkedin', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your LinkedIn username. http://www.linkedin.com/in/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='digg'>Digg</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='digg' id='digg' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('digg', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your Digg username. http://digg.com/users/<strong>username</strong></span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   		<tr>
   			<th><label for='flickr'>Flickr</label></th>
   			<td>
   				<input type='text' name='flickr' id='flickr' value='<?php echo esc_attr(get_the_author_meta('flickr', $user->ID)); ?>' class='regular-text' />
   				<br />
   				<span class='description'>Please enter your flickr username. http://www.flickr.com/photos/<strong>username</strong>/</span>
   			</td>
   		</tr>
   	</table>
   <?php } ?>
   

4. Create a new page and select “Authors List” from the page template dropdown menu

Usage Instructions

• User must create at least one post to list on the page
• Display Name is used on author listings
• No user description means no avatar
• Links to your social media profiles can be entered on the edit profile page. See:

  

How to customize

• To display smaller or larger avatars, edit author.php and find:

  <?php echo get_avatar(get_the_author_meta('user_email', $author->post_author), 80); ?>

  Replace 80 which is width and height (80×80) of avatar with your desired size.

• To add a different background color for a particular author, in your stylesheet use #author-username css selector to target a particular author.

  Lets say you want to change background color of “admin” listing to black and text color to white, you can use #author-admin { background-color: black; color: white; } css in your stylesheet.

Customization possibilities are endless. If you want help customizing your authors page, let me know in comments, I will respond with a solution.

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