Co-Authors Plus Plugin

Assign multiple bylines to posts, pages, and custom post types with a search-as-you-type input box.

Assign multiple bylines to posts, pages, and custom post types via a search-as-you-type input box. Co-authored posts appear on a co-author’s archive page and in their feed. Co-authors may edit the posts they are associated with, and co-authors who are contributors may only edit posts if they have not been published (as is core behavior).

Add writers as bylines without creating WordPress user accounts. Simply create a guest author profile for the writer and assign the byline as you normally would.

On the frontend, use the Co-Authors Plus template tags to list co-authors anywhere you’d normally list the author.

This plugin is an almost complete rewrite of the Co-Authors plugin originally developed by Weston Ruter (2007). The original plugin was inspired by the ‘Multiple Authors‘ plugin by Mark Jaquith (2005).

Refer to our wiki for detailed documentation.

Blocks

Co-Authors

Use this block to create a repeating template that displays the co-authors of a post. By default it contains the Co-Author Name block, but you can add any other block you want to the template. If you choose another Co-Author block like avatar, biography or image it will automatically be supplied the author context that it needs. This works similarly to creating a Post Template in a Query Loop block.

The Co-Authors Block supports two layouts:

Inline Layout

Use the inline layout to display co-authors in a list on a single wrapping line.

You can control the characters displayed before, between and after co-authors in the list using the block settings, or change the defaults using the following server-side filters:

` 

coauthors_default_before
coauthors_default_between
coauthors_default_between_last
coauthors_default_after
`

Block Layout

Use the block layout to display co-authors in a vertical stack. While using the block layout you can use block spacing settings to control the vertical space between co-authors.

Then you can create your own layout using blocks like group, row or stack and it will be applied to each co-author, similar to applying a layout to each post in a query loop.

Co-Author Name

This block displays a co-author’s Display Name and optionally turns it into a link to their author archive.

Using the block’s advanced settings you can select which HTML element is used to output the name. This is useful in contexts such as an author archive where you might want their name to be a heading.

Co-Author Avatar

Like the post author avatar, or comment author avatar, this block displays a small scale square image of a co-author and utilizes the Gravatar default avatars as configured in your site’s discussion options.

To customize the available sizes, use the rest_avatar_sizes filter.

Co-Author Biography

This block outputs the biographical information for a co-author based on either their user or guest author data.

The content is wrapped in paragraph elements using wpautop and is escaped using wp_kses_post.

Co-Author Featured Image

This block requires the use of Guest Authors. Because guest author avatars are uploaded to the WordPress media library, there are more options for displaying these images.

This block utilizes the image sizes configured in your theme and your site’s media settings to present a guest author’s avatar at a larger scale or higher resolution. It does not support Gravatars.

Block Context

Post, Page, Query Loop

By default, all blocks receive the post context. The job of the Co-Authors Block is to use this context to find the relevant authors and provide context to its inner blocks.

Author Archive

If you want to display data about the author on their own archive, use the individual co-author blocks directly without wrapping them in the Co-Authors Block. During requests for an author archive the correct context is derived from the author_name query variable and provided to all blocks that declare their use of the context co-authors-plus/author.

Extending

If you make a custom block and want to use the author context, add co-authors-plus/author to the usesContext property in your block.json file.

Example:
json
{
"usesContext": ["co-authors-plus/author"]
}

Block Example Data

When working with Full Site Editing, or in the post editor before the authors are loaded, example data is used. The example data provided with the co-author blocks resembles a response to the /coauthors/v1/coauthors/:user-nicename REST API endpoint.

Extending

If you have written a plugin that modifies the REST API response, you can similarly modify the example data either on the server-side using the filter coauthors_blocks_store_data or the client-side using the filter co-authors-plus.author-placeholder.

Block Non-support

To declare a lack of support for Co-Author Plus blocks on your site, use the filter coauthors_plus_support_blocks to return false.

Installation

  1. IMPORTANT: If you are using the original Co-Authors plugin, disable it before installing Co-Authors Plus.
  2. Extract the coauthors-plus.zip file and upload its contents to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory. Alternately, you can install directly from the Plugin directory within your WordPress Install.
  3. Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
  4. Place co-authors template tags in your template.
  5. Add co-authors to your posts and pages.

Screenshots

  1. Multiple authors can be added to a Post, Page, or Custom Post Type using an auto-complete interface.

    Multiple authors can be added to a Post, Page, or Custom Post Type using an auto-complete interface.

  2. Guest authors allow you to assign bylines without creating WordPress user accounts. You can also override existing WordPress account meta by mapping a guest author to a WordPress user.

    Guest authors allow you to assign bylines without creating WordPress user accounts. You can also override existing WordPress account meta by mapping a guest author to a WordPress user.

FAQ

How do I add Co-Authors Plus support to my theme?

If you’ve just installed Co-Authors Plus, you might notice that the bylines are being added in the backend but aren’t appearing on the front end. You’ll need to add the template tags to your theme before the bylines will appear.

What happens to posts and pages when I delete a user assigned to a post or page as a co-author?

When a user is deleted from WordPress, they will be removed from all posts for which they are co-authors. If you reassign their posts to another user, that user will be the co-author instead.

Can I use Co-Authors Plus with WordPress multisite?

Yes! Co-Authors Plus can be activated on a site-by-site basis or network-activated. If you create guest authors, however, those guest authors will exist on a site-by-site basis.

Who needs permission to do what?

A WordPress user will need the edit_others_posts capability to assign co-authors to posts. This is typically granted to the Editor role but can be altered with the coauthors_plus_edit_authors filter.

A WordPress user will need the list_users capability to create new guest author profiles. This is typically granted to the Administrator role but can be altered with the coauthors_guest_author_manage_cap filter.

Can I easily create a list of all co-authors?

Yes! A template tag called coauthors_wp_list_authors() accepts many of the same arguments as wp_list_authors(). Look in template-tags.php for more details.

Can I disable Guest Authors?

Yes! Guest authors can be disabled entirely through a filter. Having the following line load on init will do the trick:
add_filter( ‘coauthors_guest_authors_enabled’, ‘__return_false’ )

Changelog

Details

  • Version: 3.6.1
  • Active installations: 30,000
  • WordPress Version: 5.7
  • Tested up to: 6.5.5
  • PHP Version: 7.4

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