Published By Plugin

This plugin records which user actually published a post, which in a multi-author environment may not always be the original post author. This helps to maintain accountability for who was ultimately responsible for a post appearing live on a site.

The admin listing of posts is amended with a new “Published By” column that shows the name of the person who published the post (for those posts that have actually been published). A dropdown above admin post listings allows for the listing to be filtered by a particular publishing user (but only includes posts with a known publishing user).

For posts that were published prior to the use of this plugin (and thus the plugin could not directly record who published those posts), the plugin makes a best guess attempt to ascertain who published the post. After failing to find the publisher of the post as recorded by the plugin, it checks for who last edited the post, then who is responsible for the latest revision of the post, and finally failing those, it assumes it was the post author. In cases where it had to go through this process, the name of the person it deduced as the likely publisher appears italicized and with a question mark at the end. If you’d rather the plugin not make an attempt to guess the publisher, you can disable the checks by including this snippet in your theme’s functions.php (or, ideally, a site-specific mu-plugin):

<?php add_filter( 'c2c_published_by_skip_guessing', '__return_true' ); ?> 

Links: Plugin Homepage | Plugin Directory Page | GitHub | Author Homepage

1. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or download and unzip published-by.zip inside the plugins directory for your site (typically wp-content/plugins/)
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress

1. 

   A screenshot of the admin post listing showing the added "Published By" column. It demonstrates the mix of a post puublished by the current user, a post poblished by another user and two posts that existed before the plugin was activated (one guessed to be published by the current user and one guessed to be published by yet another user).

2. 

   A screenshot of the Publish metabox for a published post showing the current user who published the post.

3. 

   A screenshot of the Publish metabox for a published post showing another user who published the post.

Installation Instructions

1. Install via the built-in WordPress plugin installer. Or download and unzip published-by.zip inside the plugins directory for your site (typically wp-content/plugins/)
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ admin menu in WordPress

If a post is published, then changed back to a draft, and then published a second time by a different user, who is noted as the publishing user?

The user most recently responsible for a post getting published will be recorded as the publishing user. Editing a published post does not change the publishing user.

How do I see (or hide) the “Published By” column in an admin listing of posts?

In the upper-right of the page is a “Screen Options” link that reveals a panel of options. In the “Columns” section, check (to show) or uncheck (to hide) the “Published By” option.

Why does the person’s name listed as the “Published By” user appear in italics with a question mark at the end?

It’s an indication that for the given post the name shown is a guess by the plugin based on existing post data. For posts that were published prior to the use of this plugin (and thus the plugin could not directly record who published those posts), the plugin makes a best guess attempt to ascertain who published the post. After failing to find the publisher of the post as recorded by the plugin, it checks for who last edited the post, then who is responsible for the latest revision of the post, and finally failing those, it assumes it was the post author. It’s likely that the guess is correct, but it’s impossible to say for certain when the plugin isn’t activated when posts were published.

Does this plugin include unit tests?

Yes.

1.3 (2018-04-24)

• New: Add ability to filter the admin listing of posts by the publishing user
• New: Delete reference to user when user is deleted, or reassign to another user if deleted user’s posts/comments get reassigned
• Fix: Show column even when post listing is being filtered
• Fix: Properly close a ‘span’ tag
• Change: Ensure user profile URL is sanitized before display (hardening)
• New: Add README.md
• Change: Minor whitespace tweaks to unit test bootstrap
• Change: Add GitHub link to readme
• Change: Note compatibility through WP 4.9+
• Change: Update copyright date (2018)
• Change: Update installation instruction to prefer built-in installer over .zip file

1.2 (2017-01-12)

• New: When showing the ‘Published by’ user, link their display name to their profile page.
  • Add get_user_url() to get the link to the user’s profile
  • Add styles for the ‘Published by:’ metabox appearance
• New: Visually indicate when the ‘published by’ user for a post is guessed
  • Add is_publisher_id_guessed() to determine if the publisher_id for a given post was guessed
  • Display guessed publisher’s name in italics with question mark at the end
• Change: Register meta field via register_meta()
  • Add own register_meta()
  • Remove hide_meta() in favor of use of register_meta()
  • Include meta field and value in REST API responses for posts
• Change: Modify handling for ‘c2c_published_by_post_status’ filter
  • Add and internally useget_post_statuses() as getter for post statuses that should have the ‘Published By’ column
  • Allow more dynamic filtering by running the filter in get_post_statuses() rather than just once on ‘init’
• Change: If the current user is the person who published the post, then simply state “you” as the name.
• Change: Add more unit tests.
• Change: Ensure get_publisher_id() returns an integer value.
• Change: Enable more error output for unit tests.
• Change: Default WP_TESTS_DIR to /tmp/wordpress-tests-lib rather than erroring out if not defined via environment variable.
• Change: Note compatibility through WP 4.7+.
• Change: Remove support for WordPress older than 4.6 (should still work for earlier versions)
• New: Add FAQ about showing or hiding the “Published By” column.
• Change: Update existing two screenshots and add a third.
• Change: Update copyright date (2017).

1.1 (2016-03-21)

• Change: Add support for language packs:
  • Don’t load plugin translations from file.
  • Remove ‘Domain Path’ from plugin header.
  • Remove .pot file and /lang subdirectory.
• Change: Explicitly declare methods in unit tests as public.
• New: Add LICENSE file.
• New: Add empty index.php to prevent files from being listed if web server has enabled directory listings.
• Change: Note compatibility through WP 4.4+.
• Change: Update copyright date (2016).

1.0.3 (2015-09-02)

• Change: Use dirname(__FILE__) instead of __DIR__ since the latter is only available on PHP 5.3+.
• Change: Minor tweaks to formatting for inline docs.
• Change: Note compatibility through WP 4.3+.

1.0.2 (2015-02-17)

• Minor additions to unit tests
• Use DIR instead of dirname(__FILE__)
• Note compatibility through WP 4.1+
• Update copyright date (2015)
• Regenerate .pot

1.0.1 (2014-08-25)

• Minor amendment to documentation
• Minor tweak to an FAQ question
• Change documentation links to wp.org to be https
• Change donate link
• Note compatibility through WP 4.0+
• Add plugin icon

1.0

• Initial public release