Co-Authors Plus

Description

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.

For more detailed documentation refer to the GitHub Wiki for this plugin.

Co-Authors Plus 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).

Screenshots

Blocks

This plugin provides 5 blocks.

• Co-Author Avatar Displays a small scale version of a co-author's avatar. Utilizes fallbacks from Gravatar so everyone has an avatar.
• Co-Author Featured Image Uses your theme's image sizes to display a scalable avatar for a co-author with a guest author profile. Does not fallback to Gravatar images.
• Co-Author Biography Displays a co-author's biographical description.
• Co-Author Name Displays a co-author's display name and optionally links to their author archive.
• Co-Authors Displays the co-authors of a post by using blocks to create a template. Start with co-author name and add any other co-author blocks.

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.

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! You can use Co-Authors Plus on WordPress multisite. 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! You can create a list of all co-authors with a template tag coauthors_wp_list_authors() template tag. This template tag accepts many of the same arguments as wp_list_authors(). Look in template-tags.php for more details.

Can I disable Guest Authors?

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

Reviews

Great plugin – but support sucks

jroselarsen June 3, 2024

Would be a 5 star.But since reporting an error for more than a month ago, nothing has happened.Have to keep previous version to avoid errors.(Not possible for co-authors to edit posts without error)Would be sorry to find another plugin, since this seems to be the best.BR Johnny

Several issues, little support

audunmb May 8, 2024

The latest update with new blocks adds much functionality, but unfortunately the plugin has some bugs and seems to be poorly supported. It’s a volunteer effort mostly, and there doesn’t seem to be an active maintainer. Currently nearly all support questions in the forums are unanswered and lots of issues on GitHub are open as well. I wish there was an active maintainer. Still I prefer this plugin over the alternatives which are a too bloated. With bug-fixes and active support this would be great.

Excelente plugin

vytecolombia January 5, 2024

Simplemente si quieres agregar varios autores a una entrada o simplemente cambiarlos, este plugin lo soluciona de una manera excelente, intuitiva y sin tanto complique. Muchas gracias a los desarrolladores, me ha servido bastante. Los quiero mucho.

Perfect plugin, great support

IdeFixx September 30, 2023

Plugin also works with Twenty Twenty-Three theme with shortcodes, check “Shortcode breaks HTML” in the Support section.

Not ready enough for usage

ivan2343 August 3, 2023 1 reply

After removing this plugin all my posts were broken and I had to recover site from a backup. Also the newly registered taxonomy here is not public, which leads to not being able to view other posts of a particular author. The plugin needs improvement.

Is it even a plug-in?

ncaross November 29, 2022

Plug-ins are supposed to plug-in and work. This one requires you to be a web developer to make it work. Even if you’re a bit familiar with adding code to places with good instructions, this just has information for devs on how to install code – there’s no list of instructions to follow. If this changes because there’s nothing else out there, I’ll come back and revise this review, but I’ve wasted way too long on this now.

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

View the change log.