Custom Permalinks for Author Archives

[covert215]

Currently, all author permalinks take the form of ​http://example.com/author/username. There is no simple way to change this to something like ​http://example.com/author/fullname.

[covert215]

The author permalink is drawn from the user_nicename field. It should just be changed to the display_name field. I'd create a patch for it but I'm not familiar with the process.

[covert215]

I've played around with it, but with no luck. I managed to change the generated URL to correspond to the display name, but it is a broken link.

I also recognized that the display name needs to be sanitized beforehand.

I think the easiest course of action would be to generate user_nicename from display_name instead of user_login.

[DD32]

The user display_name can change, the user_nicename is designed to stay static with the login.

Permalinks are as they suggest, Permanent, Any change to the user profile data shouldnt invalidate a previously correct url.

Personally, I think that its probably plugin material if someone wants to change the way the author permalinks behave(to create non-permanent links)

[covert215]

Replying to DD32:

Permalinks are as they suggest, Permanent, Any change to the user profile data shouldnt invalidate a previously correct url.

What about post permalinks? They are editable via the permalink option menu.

I think that author permalinks should have options as well. If I want to link to the archives of all the writers, I want the link to have each author's name, not something like ​http://example.com/author/admin. I guess this could be accomplished by making each person's username their real name.

Maybe there could be another table field for user permalinks and provide an interface to set it, similar to custom slugs for posts.

[DD32]

Yeah, I see what you mean, Post Slugs are generally only ever set and then never changed again though.

Having the users slug(user_nicename) settable in a similar fasion to the the post slug might be ok assuming nothing else other than permalinks rely on it staying static.. But its still got the fact that old urls would be no longer useful.

[markjaquith]

We definitely don't want the slug to be keyed off of anything that can be changed on a whim. It shouldn't be something that an Author or an Editor can change, as it affects SEO and can break links. Advanced site admins can change the slugs by changing the user's usernames.