Title: Author Spotlight (Widget)
Author: Debashish
Published: <strong>September 26, 2009</strong>
Last modified: February 7, 2017

---

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![](https://ps.w.org/author-profile/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev=1590771)

This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**.
It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when
used with more recent versions of WordPress.

![](https://ps.w.org/author-profile/assets/icon-128x128.png?rev=1294997)

# Author Spotlight (Widget)

 By [Debashish](https://profiles.wordpress.org/debashish/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/author-profile.3.4.zip)

 * [Details](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/author-profile/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/author-profile/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/author-profile/#installation)
 * [Development](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/author-profile/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/)

## Description

Author Spotlight widget displays the profile of the author(s) with Social links (
example: Twitter, Facebook) and his/her profile picture or Gravatar on any post 
or page that has an Author. The widget automatically detects the current author(
s) of the displayed post or page; just drag and drop the widget on your sidebar 
and you are done.

To display a custom photograph with the Author’s Profile you may install the [User Photo](https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/user-photo/).
In absence of this plugin the widget will fall-back to displaying the Gravatar associated
with the user. If your posts have multiple authors you may use the [Co-Authors Plus](https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/co-authors-plus/),
the Author Spotlight will then display all the author profiles one below another
for such post/page.

Note that installing the User Photo or Co-Author plugin is purely optional, this
widget will work fine without them as well.

If you face any issues with the plugin or have any suggestion/feature requests please
do so [at the support forum](https://wordpress.org/tags/author-profile).

## Screenshots

 * [[
 * Widget configuration screen.
 * [[
 * Multiple author profiles (co-authors) displayed on the sidebar.
 * [[
 * This is how the widget looks like on the single-page sidebar after configuration.

## Installation

 1.  Download and unzip `author-profile.zip`. Then upload the folder containing `author-
     profile.php` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory.
 2.  Alternatively, you may use the Automatic installation feature of WordPress.
 3.  Activate the plugin through the `Plugins` menu in WordPress. For details [refer this Codex page](https://codex.wordpress.org/Managing_Plugins).
 4.  To display `Author Spotlight`, browse to `Appearance > Widgets` and drag-and-drop
     the ‘Author Spotlight” widget to desired sidebar. You may configure the widget
     according to your needs. Save your changes and you are done.
 5.  To enable the default look & feel of your widget you may copy/paste the suggested
     CSS at the end of your theme CSS file (usually `style.css`). Please refer the 
     answer to the [FAQ section](https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/author-profile/faq/)
     for the CSS code.
 6.  To add the ability to add Social URLs in the User profile, please add the following
     add to your Theme functions file:
 7.  /_Add Social URLs_/
      function author_spotlight_contactmethods( $contactmethods){
     if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘twitter’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘twitter’] = ‘Twitter’;
     if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘facebook’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘facebook’] = ‘Facebook’;
     if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘linkedin’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘linkedin’] = ‘LinkedIn’;
     if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘flickr’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘flickr’] = ‘Flickr’;
     if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘myspace’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘myspace’] = ‘MySpace’;
     if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘friendfeed’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘friendfeed’] =‘
     Friendfeed’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘delicious’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘delicious’]
     = ‘Delicious’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘digg’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘digg’]
     = ‘Digg’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘feed’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘feed’] = ‘
     XML Feed’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘tumblr’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘tumblr’]
     = ‘Tumblr’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘youtube’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘youtube’]
     = ‘YouTube’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘blogger’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘blogger’]
     = ‘Blogger’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘googleplus’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘googleplus’]
     = ‘Google+’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘instagram’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘instagram’]
     = ‘Instagram’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘slideshare’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘
     slideshare’] = ‘Slideshare’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘stackoverflow’] ) )
     $contactmethods[‘stackoverflow’] = ‘Stackoverflow’; if ( !isset( $contactmethods[‘
     posterous’] ) ) $contactmethods[‘posterous’] = ‘Posterous’;
 8.      ```
         return $contactmethods;
         ```
     
 9.  }
 10. add_filter(‘user_contactmethods’,’author_spotlight_contactmethods’);

## Reviews

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f52a3e6a693008cb66f1458edf5c19421170d9e76fbcad7de2ded43fa7669fff?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Does what it says on the tin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/does-what-it-says-on-the-tin-176/)󠁿

 [brewhk](https://profiles.wordpress.org/brewhk/) September 3, 2016 1 reply

We needed it only for its most basic features, and it works out-of-the-box

 [ Read all 2 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/)

## Contributors & Developers

“Author Spotlight (Widget)” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Debashish ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/debashish/)

[Translate “Author Spotlight (Widget)” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/author-profile)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/author-profile/), check
out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/author-profile/), or 
subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/author-profile/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/author-profile/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 3.4

 * Fixed Readme file, as WordPress plugin page was not displaying the FAQs correctly.
   Minor code clean-up.

#### 3.3

Code clean-up.

#### 3.2

 * Fixed issues with description text inadvertently showing up as hyper-link for
   some icons.
 * Added support for 6 more social sites (Google+, Posterous, Stackoverflow, Slideshare,
   Instagram and Blogger). Do remember to update the `author_spotlight_contactmethods`
   function in your theme functions file to be able to add these URLs to the author
   profiles (refer the installation instructions).

#### 3.1

Fixed issues with image path. Some other minor fixes.

#### 3.0

 * Rewritten to the new Widget API. Now works with any page (not just “Single”).
   Added feature to display Social icons (optional). Provided example CSS.

#### 2.1

 * Bug fix to correct a method call.

#### 2.0

 * Added support for the “Co-Authors Plus” plugin to display multiple author profiles
   for co-authored posts.

#### 1.2

 * Minor change: Fallback to show Website URL label only when URL is present.

#### 1.1

 * Bug-fix to ensure proper fall-back if the User-photo plugin doesn’t exist. Added
   plugin URL.

#### 1.0

 * Initial public release.

## Meta

 *  Version **3.4**
 *  Last updated **9 years ago**
 *  Active installations **100+**
 *  WordPress version ** 3.0 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **4.7.33**
 *  Language
 * [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/author-profile/)
 * Tags
 * [author](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/author/)[author bio](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/author-bio/)
   [Author Profile](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/author-profile/)[authors](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/authors/)
   [profile](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/profile/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/author-profile/advanced/)

## Ratings

 4.5 out of 5 stars.

 *  [  1 5-star review     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/?filter=5)
 *  [  1 4-star review     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/?filter=4)
 *  [  0 3-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/?filter=3)
 *  [  0 2-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/?filter=2)
 *  [  0 1-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/?filter=1)

[Add my review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Debashish ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/debashish/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/author-profile/)

## Donate

Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin?

 [ Donate to this plugin ](http://paypal.me/MitaliC)