Auto-generated author links for guest authors

PenciDesign Supporter replied

1 year ago

Staff Reply

Hi,

1/ The code we've added is recommended by the Co-Authors Plus plugin author and works properly for all post authors.

2/ The default WordPress author link also includes the same HTML markup, meaning the author name in the post always contains a link.

3/ All the suggested fixes you provided do not work in all cases. We tested thoroughly before releasing compatibility with the Co-Authors Plus plugin.

Regards,
PenciDesign.

HOnza Koudelka replied

1 year ago

Customer Reply

I have done some more debugging and it seems that you already have support for Co-Authors Plus API in your theme, but not completely correctly implemented. Your function penci_coauthors_posts_links() renders guest authors as <a href=""> when Website is empty.

When using the Co-Authors Plus plugin with guest authors, the penci_coauthors_posts_links() function defined by the theme produces broken links for guest authors who do not have a Website (user_url) set. Instead of linking to their author archive page (e.g. /author/guest-author/), it outputs an anchor tag with an empty href, like:

html
CopyEdit
<a href="">Guest Author</a>

This causes invalid markup and breaks navigation.

Expected behavior is for guest authors to link to their archive at /author/{user_nicename}/ when no Website is set. This is what Co-Authors Plus does by default when properly integrated.

Additionally, penci_coauthors_posts_links() does not appear to honor Co-Authors Plus filters like coauthors_guest_author_link or coauthors_links_single, making it hard to patch from outside.

Suggested fix: Update penci_coauthors_posts_links() to use:

get_author_posts_url() for WordPress users
home_url( user_trailingslashit( "author/{$author->user_nicename}" ) ) for guest authors with no user
Or defer entirely to coauthors_posts_links() to honor plugin filters.

This will ensure full compatibility with the Co-Authors Plus plugin and eliminate broken links for guest authors.

PenciDesign Supporter replied

1 year ago

Staff Reply

Hi,

Please note that the Soledad theme is only a template used to display your content. All links and site structure are managed by WordPress itself.

Regarding the author page showing only one post instead of three, it’s possible that the other two posts are co-authored. If that’s the case, there may be a configuration issue with the Co-Authors Plus plugin. We recommend checking the plugin settings to ensure everything is set up correctly.

Regards,
PenciDesign.

HOnza Koudelka replied

1 year ago

Customer Reply

But how/based on what do you generate the link for authors who are regular users? Or is Soledad not generating the link at all and just asking Wordpress for it?

You also have not answered on the second issue - Why is the page https://magazin.mensa.cz/author/jana-middleton/ showing only 1 of the three articles assigned to that author?

PenciDesign Supporter replied

1 year ago

Staff Reply

Hi,

Unfortunately, the Soledad theme can't handle this feature, as most guest author functionalities are managed and controlled by third-party plugins. There’s no way to modify or extend the features of these plugins directly through the Soledad theme.

You should contact the developers of the Co-Authors Plus and Guest Authors plugins and request that they add this option, as it's managed by the plugins themselves and not the Soledad theme.

Regards,
PenciDesign.

HOnza Koudelka started the conversation

1 year ago

Conversation Start

We're using the Co-Authors Plus and Guest Authors plugins to be able to publish articles from wide range of authors without having to create full accounts for them. We like the Soledad's feature that automatically turns author's name to a link that takes the user to the list of the author's articles. Unfortunately, it does not work, for some reason, for guest authors. As a workaround, we have to manually add website link to the guest author's contact info. Can this be fixed somehow, so that the links are automatically generated even for guest authors?

Here's an example of an article with regular user as author: https://magazin.mensa.cz/kviz-sveraznost-slavnych/

This one is assigned to a guest author where we added the website link to contact info: https://magazin.mensa.cz/nominovani-na-cestne-uznani-2025/

And this one is without the workaround (link missing): https://magazin.mensa.cz/rok-2024-2025-na-univerzitni-zakladni-skole-lvicata/

Another, but probably related issue is that the author page does not seem to show all of the author's articles. For example this page only shows one article even though this guest author is assigned to three: https://magazin.mensa.cz/author/jana-middleton/