Creating A Simple Author Profile Page In WordPress

I went over an effective way to put more social network handles into your WordPress profile without having to use a plugin, as well as being able to call it to your template in case you have an author’s box somewhere within your single post template.

This time, we are not going to have to tinker with your functions.php page.

To create a new page, you will need to specify that you are making a new template. This one will be called author.php

You want it styles somewhat similar to your other pages, but you can add the following and style it according to your own template. The code contains the gravatar, 3 different social network handles, and a simple listing of the author’s posts. You can customize it to display excerpts, display excerpts with thumbnails, full posts, and more.


<!-- 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-top">
<div class="post-title">
<h2>About: <?php echo $curauth->display_name; ?></h2>
<p style="float:left;padding-right:10px;"><a href="<?php echo $user_link; ?>" title="<?php echo $curauth->display_name; ?>">
<?php echo get_avatar($curauth->user_email, '96', $avatar); ?>
</a></p><p style="float:left;">Connect with <?php echo $curauth->display_name; ?> at: <a href="http://twitter.com/<?php echo $curauth->twitter; ?>"><strong>Twitter</strong></a> | <a href="http://facebook.com/<?php echo $curauth->facebook; ?>"><strong>Facebook</strong></a> | <a href="http://linkedin.com/in/<?php echo $curauth->linkedin; ?>"><strong>LinkedIn</strong></a></p>
<br />
<h3><strong>Website:</strong> <span><a href="<?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?>"><?php echo $curauth->user_url; ?></a></span></h3>
<p><strong>Profile:</strong> <?php echo $curauth->user_description; ?><p>
</div></div>
<div class="entry">
<h3>Posts by <?php echo $curauth->display_name; ?>:</h3>
<ul>
<!-- The Loop -->
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?></a>
</li>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<p><?php _e('No posts by this author.'); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>
<!-- End Loop -->
</ul>

In order for people to be able to see your author, simply add the following within your post’s byline:

Written by <span><?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></span>

This is actually from my own template from Blondish.net. In fact, this is what my author profile looks like at Blondish.net.