single post by author

you can do it a few ways.

First is probably just to have a custom index.php.

Most usually have something like this:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

		<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<!-- do some stuff for post formatting, comments, etc -->

		<?php endwhile; ?>

<?php else : ?>

		<h2 class="center">Not Found</h2>
		<p class="center">Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.

	<?php endif; ?>

what you need to do to take out the “while” loop. So change to something like:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

	<?php the_post(); ?>

<!-- do some stuff for post formatting, comments, etc -->

<?php else : ?>

		<h2 class="center">Not Found</h2>
		<p class="center">Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.

	<?php endif; ?>

That should basically make only 1 post on the front page.

Another way to do it is to do something in a custom loop outside of the main loop – something like this:

<?php $my_query = new WP_Query('showposts=1'); ?>

<?php while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
  <!-- Do your formatting... -->
<?php endwhile; ?>

Either way would work.

You can get more info on custom loops here:

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/The_Loop

Thanks miloandrew for the info.

This helps in getting the single post, but not for one specific author. So, following the Loop link you provided and a subsequent link or two from there I found the https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Author_Templates. I tried the $curauth->ID variable, but got a blank page. I then opened the author-template.php file and found $authordata->ID and successfully used it with the code below.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
 <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post();  if ($authordata->ID == '2') : ?>
 <!-- Formatting -->

   <?php break; ?>
  <?php endif; ?>
 <?php endwhile; ?>

 <?php else : ?>

<H2 class="center">Not Found</H2>
<P class="center">Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.</P>

 <?php endif; ?>