After designing and building the Fancy Profile Box for the Pink & Yellow Media site I published an article on how to recreate it as a cool author box in your WordPress blog. This tutorial spurred a lot of interest and I got several emails and tweets asking me to convert it to a plugin. So I did.
As of right now the virst version (0.0.1) of the Cool Author Box plugin is available for download from the WordPress plugin directory. It is pre-beta and comes without any warranty or guarantees, but I’ve tested it on 4 very different blogs and it works fine on all of those.
The Cool Author Box WordPress plugin has been submitted to the WordPress Plugin Directory and I’ll announce it once it is accepted.
Click here to download the Cool Author Box WordPress plugin
Here’s the full rundown
The Cool Author Box plugin adds a stylish author box after the content in posts and/or pages. The box displays author name, author bio, author gravatar and a link to other articles by the author.
The Cool Author Box plugin adds information about the author to the bottom of the content of posts and/or pages. The information is gathered from the profile info set inside WordPress.
Items displayed are:
- Display name of the author of the post or page
- Gravatar of the author (set at www.gravatar.com)
- Link to other posts by the same author
- Link to author’s website
To make the author box appear you need to activa the plugin and go to the Cool Author Box settings under Settings and select if the box should appear under posts, pages or both.
Comments
101 responses to “Cool Author Box: Free WordPress Plugin”
Sweet! This just ended hours of frustration, trying to get some other author plugins to work! Thanks!
I was hoping that you might be able to provide me with some code to tweak the plugin.
I wish to remove the image option and alter the text size and text color and remove the author website link.
Thank you
John
Thanks for this post on author boxes…
[…] Cool Author Box -Adds a author box to the top or bottom of posts and pages displaying the author name (linking to other posts by the same author), author website and author Gravatar in a cool and unusual layout. […]
Hi.. Suddenly this awesome plugin is not working anymore. I got this error,
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING, expecting T_STRING in /home/duniakam/public_html/wp-content/plugins/cool-author-box/cool-author-box.php on line 50
This is by far the nicest looking out of the box author bio plug-in I’ve found. I made some tweaks and love it. Thank you!!
Man, I’m using your plugin.
It was the best solution that I’ve found.
Keep updating.
Thanks!
Hi – Love your plug in. I have a bit of a problem, however. The “Cool Author Box” appears at the bottom of my pages, but not at the bottom of my posts. I have checked both boxes in the “settings” area. Any ideas? My site: http://www.travelandphototoday.com
My thanks in advance –
Bruce
I love this plugin .. how did you achieve the hide/show feature?
What’s your related posts plugin?
It’s not a plugin. I wrote it myself.
[…] Eklenti Ana Sayfas? […]
On some posts I don’t want the author’s box to appear. Is there a way I can hide the author’s box on certain posts? Thank you!
Hi,
Like other people I am getting the error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING, expecting T_STRING in E:websitesmaplinblogwp-contentpluginscool-author-boxcool-author-box.php on line 50I have looked but there doesn’t seem to be a solution. I also looked at the file mentioned an there is to T_CONSTANT etcCan anyone help?
Brilliant. How can I add author image?
The author image is added through your Gravatar. Go to Gravatar.com, create an account with the same email address you used to set up your WordPress account, upload an image to Gravatar and the image is automatically pulled in to the author box.
Great plugin, but is there anyway to change the color of the blue bar on the bottom. I noticed you have the color as orange on this page. Thanks!
Hi Morten, love the cool author box. Just trying to work out how to get the ‘s on the right line. I have 2 websites and both have “s website” on the bottom line. I’m not great with html code … thanks for any help you can give.
Erica
Hi Ericaudeanu, I had this issue also, it’s a quick fix.
Replace this line: ‘.get_the_author_meta(‘first_name’).’s website
with this one:
‘.get_the_author_meta(‘first_name’).”s website
We actually ended up modifying the function further to check to see if the name ended with an ‘s’ – if it does we only add the apostrophe, if not we add the apostrophe s.
Excellent work. Just stumbled across the plug-in and really dig it. I’m using Corona from Yoothemes that has been modified to support/display multiple authors in the tag-line (we’re just getting ready to launch this community “idea/discussion” site – still have plenty of stuff to do). We’re setting it up to allow multiple authors to discuss trends and events that are shaping the future.
Is there any way to do the same with this plugin? Have it display multiple boxes – one per co author? Right now it just shows the first author.
Side note: our first post is about the SOPA/PIPA issue (see you have it on your banner), part of a trend we’re going
to be tracking on the use of online communities to raise awareness, and
provide call to action support, for social/political/crisis events –
http://2020F.com. The next major trend we are going to launch is
online/offline censorship (see the recent announcement by Twitter that
they are going to comply with certain countries requests to locally
censor information…)
[…] Cool Author Box* […]
You should check out my Social Author Bio plugin. You can find it here: http://nickpowers.info/wordpress-plugins/social-author-bio/ and here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-autho-bio/
how do i add photo of myself to box?
wonderful plugin!! thank you
[…] Cool Author Box – Adds a author box to the top or bottom of posts and pages displaying the author name (linking to other posts by the same author), author website and author Gravatar in a cool and unusual layout. […]
hey that’s a wonderful plugin. Recently I have created my new blog carinait.com/Blog and I was just finding some good plugins that can make my blog good. This plugin is awesome I must use this one for showing the author bio below my every post.. Quite informative too.
I have found one worth checking out that is for WordPress sites that have multiple authors and/or guest writers. Its pretty light weight and was just officially announced today. I was involved in testing and can vouch that its a great easy to use plugin. There is more information on the Author Box plugin at: http://www.mofiki.com/2012/digitaltweakers-wordpress-author-box-plugin/ Hope this helps anyone looking for this type of plugin.
HELP! HELP PLEASE! Help for a soul lost in the gulf of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion…
He who writes is a writer – website http://www.yourdailyshakespeare.com
I have been advised to install your beautiful plug in. Which I did. If my reading is correct, no further action is needed to make the author ref box appear at the bottom of (each) blog. I see nothing of the sort occurring. Inevitable question: where did I go wrong? By the way I use WordPress 3.2 and the Theme is 2010.
If you answer me I’ll say, “Withing this wall of flesh there is a soul that counts thee her creditor”
Jimmie
You need to add an author bio under Users -> Profile to get the author box to show up. If no author bio is added, the author box won’t show up.
Morten,
Thank you. I did as you suggested. That is, added info on “User/Profile” and clicked “update” button. Arrived to Cool Author Box from “Settings” -> “Cool Author Box” -> and I chose “Display box on posts”.
The box still does not appear.In the “users” I appear (rightly so) as the “administrator”. I attempted to change the classification to “author” but apparently this is not possible. Not that I want to, but I imagined that to be one reason for the problem. Thanks again for your help.
The box mysteriously appeared so thank you anyway. No need for a reply.
Best Regards,
Jimmie Moglia
Same issue as two other posts. Is it because I’m using twentyEleven or that I’m on a MAC?
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING, expecting T_STRING in /Applications/wordpress-3.3.2-1/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/cool-author-box/cool-author-box.php on line 50
Love your instructional videos on Lynda.com!
Morten,
I discovered that I made a spelling error in the Cool author Box and I would like to correct it. However, when I am going to edit the plug in I am brought to an HTML CSS page and I cannot find the text I applied originally.
Rate me dumb, but could you please let me know how I could edit the text?
Thank you.
Morten,
I found the answer in the FAQ section. Thanks anyway for excellent plugin
Great plugin! I hope you continue to upgrade this gem. Thanks for your hard work, it is much appreciated.
This is really a cool plugin.
Love the plug in but it only works on pages. Can’t get it to appear on posts. It is there when I preview a post – but once published – not there. Any ideas? Be aware – I know nothing of coding.
Thanks
Bruce
As other says the plugin dont work. For me it cant be activated. Some error of some sort. I can see that others have pointed it out here and you dont bother to answer them so I doubt that you answer this? Well thats life I guess.