[Support request] Assistance Needed With Custom Author Pages & Dealing With Author Slug Issues

[Marty]

Hi everyone, I have tried everything and searched extensively, but I simply can’t figure this one out. My goals are the following:

• Add an author box to posts, linking to the desired author page; (DONE, that works, based on the PHP in this GP support thread)
• Direct the author slug to a custom page rather than the default author archive type page. In other words, I’d like to have a static, standard page I can use for my author content rather than the author field data normally displayed. With the result similar to this Domain/Authors/xx-author/ example.

However, I’ve run into obstacles I haven’t been able to resolve:

• I can create /authors/martym/ and it works, but only if I don’t change the default WP slug /author/marty/.
• Changing the default author slug to /authors/xxx gives a 404 on my custom author page; i.e., anything like /authors/xxx is a 404 and will not appear.
• The author box will always reference the current WP author slug, not a custom URL, if I wanted to try that as a workaround.
• I tried somehow adding & modifying author.PHP but couldn’t get that to work as a standard page either.

I’d really appreciate your help as I have been struggling to figure this out. Thank you!

[David]

Hi there,

in this doc we show how to use static pages for category archives.
https://docs.wpshowposts.com/article/use-static-pages-as-category-archives/

And we can change that code so it applies to author archives.

Try this:

add_filter('request', function( array $query_vars ) {
    if ( is_admin() ) {
        return $query_vars;
    }

    if ( isset( $query_vars['author_name'] ) ) {
        $pagename = $query_vars['author_name'];

        $query_vars = array( 'pagename' => "$pagename" );
    }

    return $query_vars;
} );

Then you just need to create a static page that has the same name as the author.

[Marty]

Hi David and thanks a lot. That seems to work partially, at least on the author page end. 🙂

Unfortunately, I end up with two different “author list” base URLs: WordPress (author box link, etc.) has /author/xxx/ while in reality, I have /authors/xxx/ for page structure.

If I change the slug base /author/ to /authors/ by the Edit Author Slug plugin in an attempt to be consistent I’m back at getting a 404 again.

Thank you!

[David]

How did you change the /author to /authors for the archive ?

[Marty]

Hi David. My apology if I wasn’t clear when I mentioned it above, but it’s the Edit Author Slug plugin I used as I don’t currently know how to do so otherwise.

[David]

What happens if you try rebuilding the permalinks?
To do that, go to Settings > Peramlinks and click Save Changes

[Marty]

I’ve tried that and unfortunately I still ended up with the 404 page. 🙁

[David]

Any chance you can ask the Edit Author Slug plugin developer ?
As i am not sure how to accomplish the query vars change to use a static page if that plugin has rewritten the permalink.

[Scott]

I use this plugin. Did these setting options not work for you?

[David]

The issue here Scot is:

https://generatepress.com/forums/topic/assistance-needed-with-custom-author-pages-dealing-with-author-slug-issues/#post-2503804

We are trying to rewrite the query_vars so it retrieves the static page of the same name as the category.
Problem is the default author_name is author.
Whereas Marty has renamed his to authors

If you have any ideas – it would be good to hear.

[Scott]

The Author Base can be changed to “authors” for the default “slug”. Further down that page (not shown) a custom display name can be entered for the user so the “page” would be accesses at /authors/customdisplayname/

So unless I’m not getting what we’re trying to achieve I think the simple way works.

Anyway, I’ll defer and follow. 😊

[David]

Yeah, i believe the OP has set that option. It just won’t allow my code to work with it 🙂

[Marty]

(deleted, to revise)

[Marty]

@Scott @David, thank you both.

David, couldn’t the GP author box code be modified as a workaround? The WP author bio link in the author box by default will be /author/. If I could change that to /xxxx/ (/authors/ for example) it would work, I believe.

This is the author URL PHP code portion from this thread:

<div class="author-links">
 
            <a href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ); ?>" title="Read more">
                ...
            </a>
 
        </div>

I wasn’t able to figure out how to modify this. Thank you again!

[David]

This line:

<a href="<?php echo get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) ); ?>" title="Read more">

Try replacing with:

<?php
$author_url = get_author_posts_url( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) );
$new_author_url = str_replace( 'author', 'authors' , esc_url( $author_url) );
?>
<a href="<?php echo $new_author_url; ?>" title="Read more">

[Author]

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