Modify Author Bio when no social links entered

Hi Trisha,

I presume you’re talking about the Bio that appears at the bottom of the blog posts.

If none of the social media or website links have been entered, then nothing will be displayed. In the default Quark theme it doesn’t display any “Connect with” text.

Here’s an image from my own test site that shows how the bio displays when none of the social media links have been entered.

Hi Anthony – many thanks for the response (and also for what I consider to be a brilliant – if not the best – Theme available, free or not!).

Yes, that’s the area I’m referring to. I’m sure if I update my version that Connect With would likely go away….BUT I really WOULD like to display a different message there IF there are no social links or website added by the author.

Can you tell me how I can do that? I’m not a coder but I’m good at following instructions and modifying others’ code to suit my needs, and I’m learning more every day!

OK so I downloaded the current version and compared author-bio.php to the template I have, as well as the original version I started with.

I think I must have found a snippet somewhere online to add the “Connect With ->” because it’s not in the original nor the current version. I’ve been using my current version for a long time, and honestly don’t recall how I came to add it, but here is the snippet I’m using:

<p class="social-meta">
<?php printf( wp_kses( __( 'Connect with %s <span class="meta-nav">→</span>', 'quark' ), array(
   'span' => array(
   'class' => array() )
   ) ), get_the_author_meta( 'first_name') ); ?>

This comes just before the “if ( get_the_author_meta( ‘url’ ) ) {“

It’s worked great but I recently discovered a few of our authors who don’t list a website or any social connections, which is why – in their case – I want to change the “Connect With ->” to something different, and that’s where I’m stuck.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Something like this should work for you.

It’ll get all the values and if one of them isn’t empty, it’ll display the links. If they’re all empty, it shouldn’t display anything.

$websiteurl = get_the_author_meta( 'url' );
$twittterurl = get_the_author_meta( 'twitter' );
$facebookurl = get_the_author_meta( 'facebook' );
$googleurl = get_the_author_meta( 'googleplus' );

<?php if ( !empty( $websiteurl ) || !empty( $twittterurl ) || !empty( $facebookurl ) || !empty( $googleurl ) ) { ?>
	<p class="social-meta">
		<?php printf( wp_kses( __( 'Connect with %s <span class="meta-nav">→</span>', 'quark' ), array(
	   	'span' => array(
	   	'class' => array() )
	   	) ), get_the_author_meta( 'first_name') ); ?>
		<?php if ( !empty( $websiteurl ) ) { ?>
			<a href="<?php echo $websiteurl; ?>" title="Website"><i class="fa fa-link fa-fw"></i></a>
		<?php } ?>
		<?php if ( !empty( $twittterurl ) ) { ?>
			<a href="<?php echo $twittterurl; ?>" title="Twitter"><i class="fa fa-twitter fa-fw"></i></a>
		<?php } ?>
		<?php if ( !empty( $facebookurl ) ) { ?>
			<a href="<?php echo $facebookurl; ?>" title="Facebook"><i class="fa fa-facebook fa-fw"></i></a>
		<?php } ?>
		<?php if ( !empty( $googleurl ) ) { ?>
			<a href="<?php echo $googleurl; ?>" title="Google+"><i class="fa fa-google-plus fa-fw"></i></a>
		<?php } ?>
	</p>
<?php } ?>

I haven’t tested this code, but barring spelling mistakes, it should work hopefully

Thanks Anthony! That actually works perfectly – we abandoned the idea to have an alternate message display, and your code above solved my problem of having the Connect with-> display even when no social links are entered.

I really appreciate your help!

No probs. Glad it helped ??