Guest Authors on Multisite

  • I’ve been using this plugin for a while and would like to use the guest authors feature for a multisite installation utilizing the WPMU Sitewide-Tags plugin (make the primary blog an aggregate of posts from across all the others). Calling coauthors_posts_links(); on the primary blog does not retrieve the guest author, presumably because that guest author is only really stored with respect to the particular blog for which it is a custom post.

    Perhaps something else is going on, but I’d love to be able to use this with multisite.

    Further, I had some odd behavior for a while that must have corrected itself (perhaps it was a migration triggered by calling some specific function?) where guest authors’ posts_link did not display, basically since get_author_posts_url() was coming back null here:

    function coauthors_posts_links_single( $author ) {
        $args = array(
                'href' => get_author_posts_url( $author->ID, $author->user_nicename ),

    https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/co-authors-plus/

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Plugin Contributor Daniel Bachhuber

    (@danielbachhuber)

    Calling coauthors_posts_links(); on the primary blog does not retrieve the guest author, presumably because that guest author is only really stored with respect to the particular blog for which it is a custom post.

    Correct. The best approach would probably be to save the guest author data to a global table, and then directly query the global table. You could hook into Co-Authors Plus and add a syncing action that creates or updates the profile data in the global table on save.

    Further, I had some odd behavior for a while that must have corrected itself (perhaps it was a migration triggered by calling some specific function?) where guest authors’ posts_link did not display, basically since get_author_posts_url() was coming back null

    Odd. Let me know if it comes up again.

    Thread Starter msenate

    (@msenate)

    Calling coauthors_posts_links(); on the primary blog does not retrieve the guest author, presumably because that guest author is only really stored with respect to the particular blog for which it is a custom post.

    Correct. The best approach would probably be to save the guest author data to a global table, and then directly query the global table. You could hook into Co-Authors Plus and add a syncing action that creates or updates the profile data in the global table on save.

    Fair, but I would like to know if there is any plan to incorporate this into future Co-authors Plus development. Your suggestion, akin to a Sitewide Tags type of solution, would be non-trivial, and I’d be wary of taking it on in earnest for a production environment unless there were other folks who planned to implement and support it. Still weighing options and work-arounds…

    Further, I had some odd behavior for a while that must have corrected itself (perhaps it was a migration triggered by calling some specific function?) where guest authors’ posts_link did not display, basically since get_author_posts_url() was coming back null

    Odd. Let me know if it comes up again.

    I’ll test explicitly as I move from dev to staging environments and see if it happens again.

    Thanks.

    Thread Starter msenate

    (@msenate)

    Just had a thought, maybe this can be used: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/switch_to_blog

    Wondering if it’s overkill…

    Plugin Contributor Daniel Bachhuber

    (@danielbachhuber)

    Fair, but I would like to know if there is any plan to incorporate this into future Co-authors Plus development.

    We don’t yet have any plans to. This is the first time it’s been requested.

    Also, use of switch_to_blog() should be used sparingly as it can be the source of many performance issues.

    Thread Starter msenate

    (@msenate)

    Aha, okay well if there’s a place I can submit a ticket with more details and follow on the dev thread, let me know.

    As for switch_to_blog(), I agree with the hesitation…

    Right now it seems that if there is not some more elegant global-level solution for multisite than a custom hack, I’ll have to choose not to use the guest author feature. Despite not hearing similar requests as of yet, the Sitewide Tags configuration of a Multisite install alongside an implementation of Co-authors Plus is fairly standard. I imagine there is interest, but it has yet to become visible.

    I’m thinking about the wp-signups table as an example, but agree much complexity is avoided with the use of custom post types…

    Plugin Contributor Daniel Bachhuber

    (@danielbachhuber)

    Right now it seems that if there is not some more elegant global-level solution for multisite than a custom hack

    Yeah, I don’t have a good solution at this time.

    Thread Starter msenate

    (@msenate)

    Sat on this for a bit… started investigating Custom Post Types with Sitewide Tags. Apparently there is some support for CPTs with the filter described here:

    https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-mu-sitewide-tags-pages-grabbing-custom-post-type-posts?replies=9#post-2461367

    I implemented and refreshed Sitewide Tags, but limited success as of yet… have resource limitations on develop environment so need to debug…

    My blog, https://mgx.com/ has been happily using co-authors plugin for sometime and I recently converted the blog to multisite. Some less technically savvy writers have me input their articles on their behalf and I have always used the plug in to use their byline. On the dashboard this all works fine and the other writer is shown as the post author, but for some reason on the front end, I am listed as the author instead. Perhaps this should be a separate topic, but is there any suggestions?

    Plugin Contributor Daniel Bachhuber

    (@danielbachhuber)

    If you’re using the guest author feature, you’ll need to make sure you incorporate the Co-Authors Plus template tags.

    I am not using the guest authors feature as the co-authors are registered users. Normally, I can post articles and specify the author but now it lists every author as me instead of the specified registered user.

    Thread Starter msenate

    (@msenate)

    I’d like to leave this issue as unresolved since there is limited compatibility of guest authors with multisite. We can resolve once there is a work-around or support.

    Plugin Contributor Daniel Bachhuber

    (@danielbachhuber)

    You’re welcome to, but we don’t have any plans to support multisite-wide Co-Authors at this time.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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