Author Bio Shortcode Plugin

This plugin allows you to enter [author_bio] anywhere within the content of a post or page to display the biography of the author of that post or page.

The output now contains HTML, which can be customised very easily with extra parameters – see Installation for a how-to – to sit around the bio, as defined in /wp-admin/profile.php.

By default the shortcode produces the author of that post or page. However, extra parameters enable you to specify a different user whose bio you want to print out – see usage instructions.

Feature requests welcomed with open arms!

Simple install in /wp-content/plugins like any other!

Usage

Simply place [author_bio] anywhere within your post/page content.

Additionally, you can pass one of the following attributes to specify a different user;

• id – accepts the user ID
• username – accepts the username
• email – accepts the user e-mail address

For example;
[author_bio]
[author_bio id=”4″]
[author_bio username=”admin”]
[author_bio email=”[email protected]”]

You can also have the author’s avatar added, by using the avatar parameter like so;
[author_bio avatar=”yes”]
Warning: if you don’t want the avatar, do not change the above to “no” as it will not work, simply change back to [author_bio] alone.

It’s possible to add the author’s name, too by adding the name parameter;
[author_bio name=”yes”]
Warning: As with the avatar option, leave the name parameter out completely to hide the name.

Additionally, you can make the author’s name link to his/her website as defined in their profile;
[author_bio name=”yes” name_link=”yes”]

You can also customise the HTML output which defaults to;

… the author bio …

There are 7 parameters that describe the HTML above;

• ‘container_element’ defaults to ‘div’ and creates the first div in the example above
• ‘container_class’ defaults to ‘author_bio_shortcode’ as seen above
• ‘name_container’ defaults to h3
• ‘name_class’ defaults to ‘name’
• ‘name_pre’ is empty by default and can be used to add text before the author’s name
• ‘name_post’ is empty by default and can be used to add text after the author’s name
• ‘avatar_container_element’ defaults to ‘div’ and creates the element that surrounds the avatar image
• ‘avatar_container_class’ defaults to ‘avatar’ and adds itself to the ‘avatar_container_element’
• ‘bio_container_element’ defaults to ‘div’ and wraps the bio text
• ‘bio_container_class’ defaults to ‘bio’ and is used in the bio container element
• ‘bio_paragraph’ defaults to true and decides whether to put the bio text into a Paragrah tag. Note, only a value of zero (0) will change it, e.g. bio_paragraph=0

Here is an example using all the HTML parameters to re-create the above example code;
[author_bio container_element=”div” container_class=”author-bio-shortcode” avatar_container_element=”div” avatar_container_class=”avatar” bio_container_element=”div” bio_container_class=”bio” bio_paragraph=”true”]

This example shows how to remove the P tag from around the bio text;
[author_bio bio_paragraph=0]

1.0

• First commit

1.2

• Ensured compatibility with WordPress v3.2.1
• Added PHPDoc commenting
• New activation function to check version number
• Now using more obscure function naming
• Added extra options for specifying the user

1.2.1

• Tidied up PHP Notices (kudos to Lee Willis for pointing that out!)

2.0

• Added ability to include the author’s avatar alongside the bio
• Added HTML to provide for easier styling
• Added additional parameters to change the default HTML output

2.1

• Added name parameters

2.2

• Fix for deprecated function get_user_id_from_string()

2.3

• Versioning mishap (Phil can’t count)

2.5.1

• Where did v2.4 go?
• i18n fixes

2.5.2

• PHP Notice fixes
• Made sure Author ID is always integer

2.5.3

• PHP Notice fixes
• 3.9 compatibility check