Allows multiple authors to be assigned to a Post or Page via the search-as-you-type inputs. Co-authored posts appear on a co-author’s posts page and feed. New template tags allow listing of co-authors. Editors and Administrators may assign co-authors to a post. Additionally, 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 usual).
This plugin is an almost complete rewrite of the Co-Authors plugin originally developed at Shepherd Interactive (2007). The original plugin was inspired by the ‘Multiple Authors’ plugin by Mark Jaquith (2005).
The extended version is created by Mohammad Jangda, and incorporates search-as-you-type functionality for adding users, which aims to make easy the task of adding multiple users to posts and pages, especially when dealing with a system with hundreds of users (typical of newspaper and magazine sites).
Version 2.0 is a major re-write of the plugin to utilize the WordPress taxonomy system instead of post meta.
See “Other Notes” section for Template Tags and usage information
Download
Latest version: Download Co-Authors Plus v2.1.1 [zip]
Installation
- IMPORTANT: Please disable the original Co-Authors plugin (if you are using it) before installing Co-Authors Plus
- 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. - Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
- Place the appropriate coauthors template tags in your template.
- Add co-authors to your posts and pages.
FAQ
Q. What is the main difference between Co-Authors and Co-Authors Plus?
A. The most notable difference is the replacement of the standard WordPress authors drop-downs with search-as-you-type/auto-suggest/whatever-you-call-them input boxes. As a result, major bits of the JavaScript code was changed to be more jQuery-friendly. Eventually, I hope to include the ability to add new Users from within the Edit Post/Page screen and possibly Gravatar support.
Q. What happens to posts and pages when I delete a user assigned to a post or page as a coauthor?
A. When a user is deleted from WordPress, they will be removed from all posts for which they are co-authors. If you chose to reassign their posts to another user, that user will be set as the coauthor instead.
Changelog
2009-10-16 / 2.1.1
- Fix for coauthors not being added if their username is different from display name
- Fixes to readme.txt (fixes for textual and puntuation errors, language clarification, minor formatting changes) courtesy of Waldo Jaquith
2009-10-11 / 2.1
- Fixed issues related to localization. Thanks to Jan Zombik zombik@students.uni-mainz.de for the fixes.
- Added set_time_limit to update function to get around timeout issues when upgrading plugin
2009-10-11 / 2.0
- Plugin mostly rewritten to make use of taxonomy instead of post_meta
- Can now see all authors of a post under the author column from Edit Posts page
- All authors of a post are now notified on a new comment
- Various javascript enhancements
- New option to allow subscribers to be added as authors
- All Authors can edit they posts of which they are coauthors
- FIX: Issues with wp_coauthors_list function
- FIX: Issues with coauthored posts not showing up on author archives
2009-06-16 / 1.2.0
- FIX: Added compatibility for WordPress 2.8
- FIX: Added new template tags (get_the_coauthor_meta & the_coauthor_meta) to fix issues related to displaying author info on author archive pages. See Other Notes for details.
- FIX: Plugin should now work for plugins not using the ‘wp_’ DB prefix
- FIX: Coauthors should no longer be alphabetically reordered when the post is updated
- FIX: Plugin now used WordPress native AJAX calls to tighten security
- DOCS: Added details about the new template tags
2009-04-26 / 1.1.5
- FIX: Not searching Updated SQL query for autosuggest to search through first name, last name, and nickname
- FIX: When editing an author, and clicking on a suggested author, the original author was not be removed
- DOCS: Added code comments to javascript; more still to be added
- DOCS: Updated readme information
2009-04-25 / 1.1.4
- Disabled “New Author” output in suggest box, for now
- Hopefully fixed SVN issue (if you’re having trouble with the plugin, please delete the plugin and reinstall)
2009-04-23 / 1.1.3
- Add blur event to disable input box
- Limit only one edit at a time.
- Checked basic cross-browser compatibility (Firefox 3 OS X, Safari 3 OS X, IE7 Vista).
- Add suggest javascript plugin to Edit Page.
2009-04-19 / 1.1.2
- Disabled form submit when enter pressed.
2009-04-15 / 1.1.1
- Changed SQL query to return only contributer-level and above users.
2009-04-14: 1.1.0
- Initial beta release.
Hi Mohammad, good plugin!
I noticed a bug, indeed. If a co-author is assigned to a post for the first time (i.e. he has no active posts neither as author nor as co-author) the author page link doesn’t work.
You can see an example here:
http://trovabile.dev/articoli/trentinosociale
If you click on “Dario Betti”, another author page is opened instead.
Sorry the previous comment link was incorrect, this is the right one:
http://trovabile.org/articoli/trentinosociale
Hi Mohammad,
This is a great plugin. Really great, especially the explainations of how to use the template tags – made it easy even for a coding novice like me!
I have one question that I hope you will be able to help me with. It is with a bit of a strange extension to your plugin, but one that could be really very useful. I am using the co-authors status to allow a user to upload a photo to a comment. What I would now like to do is, on the homepage, call a particular post and then show the most recent comment that was made by a coauthor. If you are able to help me I would be really grateful.
Many thanks!
Nathan
Hi,
I am using the co-authors plugin V1.2.0 on our internal blog. I tried to update to 2.1.1 but the author search-as-you-type box on the editor reverts to the drop down list and I don’t see any co-authors at all..
We are using WordPress 2.9.2 and Version 1.2.0 of the plugin works.
Any idea what I’m doing wrong?
I’m seeing the same thing here.
It used to work great; indeed, we have assigned multiple co-authors to many pages and posts using co-author plus.
However, somewhere along the line things got broken.
Some pages (even those that have multiple authors assigned!) don’t display pliug-ins select fields at all, but revert back to the single author drop-down selection. On other pages it seems to work as it used to.
Could WP 2.9.2 be the culprit?
Thanks for the excellent plugin! Is there a way to allow WordPress Authors (in addition to Editors and Administrators) the ability to assign co-authors to a post?
In case anyone else has the same problem, I found a solution. Using Justin Tadlock’s Members plug-in
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/members/
I added the capability edit_others_posts to the Author role. As a consequence, Authors CAN edit others’ posts as well as assign co-authors, but this is fine for my purposes.
Thanks Nathaniel for the question and solution :)
You bring up an important issue, and I’ll see if I can add in that capability for authors (i.e. add authors post but not be able to edit other’s posts).
I would like to be able to notify the co authors is a comment has been left. I am using the plugin NotifyonComments which will send a mail to the primary author, but this doesn’t pick up the co-authors.
here is the code that retrieves the authors email, but how can I change this to capture all of the co-authors?
$user = get_userdata($post->post_author);
$to = $user->user_email;
I’d be really grateful for your help.
Many thanks
There is a bug in the custom function coauthors_wp_list_authors: it does not include authors in the list who don’t have a post of their own – if they have only entries in which they are listed as co-author but not as author, they will not be included in the list.
I’ve looked at the faulty SQL statement, but unfortunately my knowledge of advanced SQL, especially when it comes to JOINs, as well as my knowledge of the wp database structure is too limited and I remain clueless.
There is a topic in the WP support forum (http://wordpress.org/support/topic/275644?replies=5), but unfortunately the information there is very outdated and the fix is not applicable anymore. I couldn’t find any other, more current solutions on the internet. I’d be glad if you could fix the bug so it also lists co-authors who don’t have posts where they’re the sole author, as well as display the correct post count for all authors. Judging from the forum, I’m not the only one who is vexed by this bug (I think the comment by Luca Rosati is referring to the same bug).
I am using the latest issue of wordpress (2.9.2). When I try to install co-authors plus I get the gollowing error message:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /homepages/9/d133509243/htdocs/brierleyhill/wp-content/plugins/co-authors-plus/co-authors.php on line 422
Have you any ideas on how to get it to work?
Thanks
Your server needs to be running PHP5 to get Co-Authors Plus to work. Alternatively, you can try using v1.2 which works with PHP4. You can grab it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/co-authors-plus/download/
Hi
Any plan to modify the “Edit Posts” admin screen to show the various co-authors for each post?
Thanks
Ted
Ah, that would definitely be useful. I’ll add it to the next release.
Mohammad, I’m on wp 2.9.2 with co-a+ 2.1.1 and can’t get ‘the_coauthor_meta( $field )’ to work. I’m trying to show both authors’ bios, etc…
I’m using … php the_coauthor_meta(‘description’); ? … but nothing is output or echo’d.
Any ideas why? Can anyone confirm that the_coauthor_meta( $field ) function works for them?
Thanks!
Thanks so much for this essential plugin!
I’m having problems with my author archives. My co-authored posts link to each author archive, for example:
mysite.com/authors/john
mysite.com/authors/henry
John’s archive is fine, but Henry’s archive has John’s name and bio. Henry’s posts are displayed correctly, it’s just the name and bio that are from the wrong author.
How do I use the CoAuthorsIterator class to display only Henry’s name and bio on his author archive? TIA!
Thanks for your question; glad you like the plugin :)
The issue is caused because of the way WordPress handles authors for posts. There’s a way to fix this though. Add the code from the following link to your author.php template. It should be added right before the name and bio (but right after the_post() call on the page).
http://gist.github.com/448471
Hi, I have problem with displaying my archive.php page for authors. I’ve replaced
the_author_posts_link();
with
if(function_exists(‘coauthors_posts_links’))
coauthors_posts_links();
else
the_author_posts_link();
but archive pages still doesn’t work – it just display info: “Sorry, but there aren’t any posts by name-of-author yet.”, tough I’ve a couple of posts by every author.
I’m not big php or wordpress magic, so sorry if I ask about something obvious :) But I googled it for a couple of hours and couldn’t get the answer.
I’m running wordpress 3.0 installation with Magazine Basic theme.