Because I personally believe that an ‘Author Information’ block below every entry overkill is, the author archive is the right spot to display more information about every author and also display the entries written by authors in a short and concise way.

Part 1: Adding The Author Description and Gravatar

Creating customised author pages is really simple. Other than some CSS customisation the code for the author description is entirely provided by known and documented WordPress template tags and information gathered from the author profile.

First we need of course a author.php template for this to work and you need to make sure that every author fills in their profile. The code used in following code samples is backwards compatible (to WP1.2!) and makes use of the $ curauth functions documented in the WordPress Codex Author Templates. The email address is protected from spam harvesters.

<p class="listhead">You're in the <b>Author Archive</b></p>

	<!-- This sets the $curauth variable -->
	<?php
	if(isset($_GET['author_name'])) :
	$curauth = get_userdatabylogin($author_name);
	else :
	$curauth = get_userdata(intval($author));
	endif;
	?>

	<div class="post">

	<h2><?php echo $curauth->first_name; ?> <?php echo $curauth->last_name; ?></h2>
	<blockquote><?php echo $curauth->user_description; ?></blockquote>

	<h3>Information</h3>
	<div class="right"><?php echo get_avatar( $curauth->user_email, '56' ); ?></div>
		<ul>
		    <li>E-mail: <strong><a href="mailto:<?php echo antispambot($curauth->user_email); ?>">email author</a></strong></li>
		    <li>Website: <strong><a href="<?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?>"><?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?></a></strong></li>
		    <li>The avatar to the right is my gravatar. <a href="http://gravatar.com" title="Get your own!">Get your own!</a></li>
		</ul>

You can now easily style this further with CSS.

Part Two: Adding List of Entries Written by The Author

The second part of the author pages is lots simpler and nothing more than a customised loop. Rather a loop without the excerpts.

	<h3>Browse Updates by The Author</h3>
		<ul>
		<!-- The Loop -->
		<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
			  <li>
			  <strong><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></strong><br />
			  <small>Filed as <?php the_category(', '); ?> on <?php the_time('j/n Y'); ?> <?php the_time('H:i'); ?> with <?php comments_popup_link('no comments', '1 comment', '% comments'); ?></small>
			  </li>
		<?php endwhile; ?>
		</ul>

That’s It. Almost

All there is left to do now is to add the Previous/Next navigation and provide a fallback option for when the author hasn’t published any entries yet.

	<div class="navigation">
		<div class="left"><?php next_posts_link('&larr; Previous Entries') ?></div>
		<div class="right"><?php previous_posts_link('Next Entries &rarr;') ?></div>
	</div>

		  <?php else: ?>
		  <p><?php _e('No posts published yet!'); ?></p>

		<?php endif; ?>
		<!-- End Loop -->
	</div>

It’s as simple as this. You can see the result on my BloggingPro author page.

Up First The category-slug.php Template

Before it was added, all you had available was the standard category.php template file which we’re all aware of, along with category-id.php which would have been used by some developers if they needed to show different layouts for each category archive. The trouble starts though if you’ve got 2 or 3 files like category-2.php, category-30.php and category-17.php then it get’s a little confusing if you forget what ID goes with which category!

So with the addition of category-slug.php you can now have category-blog.php, category-announcement.php among many others. If you use the Top Level Categories plugin to build your site, that’s when it removes /category/ from the URL, and makes the archives look more like a page, you can truely IMHO take advantage of these template options.

Next We’ve Got The tag-id.php Template

After category-slug.php was introduced, another ticket was opened up asking if the tag templates could be brought up in-line with the category templates, which required adding the tag-id.php and the WordPress Development Team agreed to so just that.

Finally The page-slug.php And page-id.php Templates

I’m not sure about you, but I much prefer the idea of using page-sitemap.php to show my /sitemap/ page, over the custom page template in which you have to select from the template section within the post area of the admin area.

The same goes for page-4.php too, but like category-id.php and tag-id.php, if your site has a lot of page templates it can get a little messy inside the theme folder not knowing what file you might want to edit. Which is why I’d go for the page-slug.php option.

Just remember that whatever you use for the permalink, or URL, of your category/tag/page that you use it for these templates otherwise it’ll not work and they’ll default back to their respective category.php, tag.php and page.php templates!

What Are We Still Looking For?

If you take a look at the Template Hierarchy over on the WordPress Codex, you should see my point, as it’s about the only thing missing. And if you’ve not quite worked out what they are, then look no further than author-id.php and author-slug.php templates, am I right or not? :) Maybe it might just make it’s way into 3.0 you never know.

So there you have it, a little summary of a couple of new features that made 2.9, roll on 3.0!

It is now simple to create a list of the 5 upcoming entries and display this in your theme, fe. in your sidebar.

<?php
$my_query = new WP_Query('post_status=future&showposts=5');
?>
<div class="sidebar-box">
    <?php
    if ($my_query->have_posts()) : while ($my_query->have_posts()) :
        $my_query->the_post();
        ?>
        <ul>
          <li>
           <?php the_title(); ?>
          </li>
        </ul>
    <?php endwhile; else: ?>
        <div>
        <ul>
          <li><?php _e('No upcoming Posts'); ?></li>
        </ul>
        </div>
    <?php endif; ?>
</div>

You can now easily style this in your CSS.

Use A Shortcode To Display Upcoming Entries In A Post

First, what are shortcodes? I wrote a small intro to shortcodes on Devlounge yesterday with some examples of how to build a shortcode.

Why would you want to display a list of upcoming posts within an entry? You could be writing a series and want to use your upcoming entries as an additional teaser in the hope that the reader will subscribe or return to your site. You could use a post template for this but it is very simple to create a shortcode. Once you have created this shortcode it is then very simple to add the list of upcoming posts anywhere in an entry.

Building the shortcode

For this example we are going to build a shortcode [upcoming] and will use the tag series as selector. Doing this, it will avoid that scheduled entries not tagged Series will not be displayed. This can be handy on multi-authored blogs with a regular, scheduled posting rhythm.

Add the following code to your functions.php.

function upcom($atts, $content = null) {
       extract(shortcode_atts(array(
               "num" => '5'
               "tag" => 'series'
       ), $atts));
       global $post;
       $myposts = get_posts('numberposts='.$num.'&post_status=future&order=DESC&orderby=date&tag='.$tag);
       $retour='<ul class="upcoming">';
       foreach($myposts as $post) :
               setup_postdata($post);
            $retour.='<li><a href="'.get_permalink().'">'.the_title("","",false).'</a></li>';
       endforeach;
       $retour.='</ul> ';
       return $retour;
}
add_shortcode('upcoming', 'upcom');

All you have to do now to display this list in an entry is use the shortcode [upcoming] in the editor.

In this example I used <ul class="upcoming"> to easily style the output in your CSS.

Modifying The Shortcode Function

The shortcode function above can easily be modified.

- The example returns 5 posts, change the value in line 3 to display more or less entries
- Change the tag you want to use in the same way as you would change the number of displayed entries (line 4).

Ekin Ertac has created a new sheet entitled “Free Complete Wordpress Cheat Sheet” where you can look over WordPress specific tags for various theming needs.

It is one page, and in PDF form.

Over on WordPress.tv, there is now a video introducing people to custom fields, how they work, and how to use them.

Using custom fields can be confusing to new WordPress users. Scott Ellis provides an introductory explanation of how to use custom fields for image placement and the components that go into making custom fields work from front end placement to back end utilization and code.

I hope to see more detailed videos regarding custom fields and their use in the future. I think it is entirely an underused and under appreciated feature in WordPress.

If you use WordPress.com, or are thinking about using it, you might want to spend a bit of time hunting down abuse and bringing it to the attention of Automattic, the people running WordPress.com’s hosted service.

As someone who has filed hundreds of copyright complaints over the years, I can say without a doubt that Automattic has been very responsive to copyright complaints. However, there is a very strict protocol that one needs to follow in order to have their complaint acted upon.

Automattic is a U.S.-based company and its servers are located with in the country. As such, it is bound by U.S. law, most notable the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law provides a safe harbor to Web hosts, such as Automattic, to prevent them from being held liable for copyright infringement perpetrated by their users without their knowledge.

Follow the advice in the post, report abuse, and make WordPress.com a better place for everyone.

Today I’m bringing you a bunch of WordPress resources. As I’m sure your aware, WordPress is my tool of choice. The wonderful thing about WordPress, is you can do just about anything with it. So I’ve compiled this list in hopes of showing you some cool things you can do with your WordPress site that you might not have known. This list includes general resources, inspiration, quality themes, along with a bunch of tips & tricks (from beginner to more advanced) Enjoy!

If you are just getting into WordPress, or you are thinking about it, this list has a great number of resources that I check out nearly daily, making it perfect for any level of WordPress user or fan.

While many of you that read this blog will probably know nearly all of these sites, hopefully there will be a few that catch your eye that you haven’t frequented because the best way to learn something new about WordPress is to find those hidden gem blogs.

Over on the WordPress blog, they’ve made finding out how to add information to your plugin relating to the various things you’ve done between versions, and this information can be very important for those working with your plugin.

We’ve recently made some changes to help improve the communication between plugin authors and plugin users about the changes that are made between versions.

We feel that all software should have a changelog that details, at a high level, what changes have been made in each version so that the user can make an informed decision about when to upgrade and how much testing they should do with their site.

In order to make this an easy and open communication channel we have added support for a Changelog section in the plugins readme.txt file. This changelog information is then displayed as a separate tab in the plugin directory and also in the back end of your WordPress blog when you view the details on a new version of a plugin.

So if you don’t yet have a changelog section in your readme.txt file, now is the time to add one, and if you need more information on the structure or what you should include, check out the WordPress blog posting on the matter.

Most of them are in PDF form, so you’ve been warned. If your computer chokes on PDF’s, you might want to look elsewhere, but these files are worth having. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked up the same piece of code in the Codex, only to run and do a Google search regarding the function.

If you need a WordPress quick reference sheet, check out those listed on 1st Webdesigner’s list.

Here’s the first one off the list…

1. Short URL Plug-in – This WordPress plug-in allows you to shorten the long URL’s easily and it even enables you to keep track of the short URL’s so that you can know how many times each short URL has been clicked. This feature is really useful to track downloads and other links in your blog. If you wish to reset the counter you can click on the ‘clear all’ button to zero the counter. It includes pagination of links, easier setup of htaccess (permalinks) and allows administrators to pass variables to their redirects.

For the other 4 (and a link to that first one), head over to the article on quickonlinetips.com called “5 Best WordPress Plugins to Shorten URLs“