Description
Dotes Author Booster helps multi-author sites present who wrote each piece of content.
Author signature (author box)
- Card, line and minimal layouts.
- Shown before or after the content, both, or placed manually with the
[dotes_author_signature]shortcode. - Per-post override of the layout and of the signed author.
- Professional profile fields on the user screen: job title, company, specialty, location, credentials, contact details, extended bio and more than 30 social and professional networks.
Author pages
- Custom author archive template with breadcrumbs and the author’s posts (classic themes; block themes keep their own author template).
Structured data
- Person and Article JSON-LD for authors and posts.
- Can be switched off in the settings, and is off by default when Yoast SEO or Rank Math is active, to avoid duplicated schema.
For developers
The plugin exposes filters and actions prefixed with dotes_ab_ (signature layouts, templates, profile fields, schema, admin tabs and settings fields, author page sections) so it can be extended without editing its files.
Third-party libraries
- Font Awesome Free 6.7.2 is bundled in
assets/vendor/fontawesome(icons CC BY 4.0, fonts SIL OFL 1.1, code MIT). It is served from your own site.
External services
This plugin can load fonts from Google Fonts, a service by Google LLC. Nothing is requested from Google by default.
- What it is used for: showing the signatures and author pages with a Google font.
- When: only if you choose a Google font in the plugin settings (Settings > Visual customization). With the default “Inherit from theme” (or “System”) font, no request is made.
- What is sent: when a visitor opens a page that shows a signature or an author page, the visitor’s browser requests the stylesheet and font files from
fonts.googleapis.comandfonts.gstatic.com. As with any web request, this shares the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent with Google, plus the name and weights of the chosen font. - Service provider: Google Fonts, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The plugin makes no other request to external services and sends no data to the plugin authors.
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the
dotes-author-boosterfolder to/wp-content/plugins/, or install it from the Plugins screen. - Activate the plugin.
- Go to Author Booster in the admin menu to choose the signature layout and position.
- Fill in the professional profile under Users > Profile.
FAQ
-
How do I place the signature manually?
-
Set the position to “manual” in the settings and add
[dotes_author_signature]to the content, or[dotes_author_signature post_id="123"]to show the authors of another post. -
Will it duplicate the schema printed by my SEO plugin?
-
No. When Yoast SEO or Rank Math is active the plugin does not print its own JSON-LD. Developers can change this with the
dotes_ab_output_schemafilter. -
Author pages use the normal WordPress author URL (
/author/name/). A page listing every author is part of the Pro add-on. -
With a classic theme the plugin can replace the author archive with its own template (hero, filters and posts list). Block themes build the author archive from their own template (Appearance > Editor), so the plugin keeps it; signatures and structured data work the same with any theme.
-
Co-authorship (several authors per post, each with a signature) is part of the Pro add-on. Without it, the post shows the signature of its main author.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Dotes Author Booster” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Dotes Author Booster” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.3.4
- Fixed: the admin notice shown when the database table cannot be created now includes the database error (it was cleared by the table check).
1.3.3
- Removed: the hidden “custom stylesheet URL” setting kept from old versions. A URL saved there is added as an @import at the top of the theme’s Additional CSS during the update. The never-used “custom CSS” values of the visual settings are dropped.
- The author JSON-LD is printed with wp_print_inline_script_tag().
- Profile, preview and settings forms read only their own fields, sanitized; the dotes_ab_profile_save_data and dotes_ab_settings_save_values filters receive sanitized input instead of the raw request.
- Database: updated_at no longer uses a CURRENT_TIMESTAMP default (MySQL 5.5 support); if the table cannot be created, an admin notice explains it and the plugin tries again later.
- Translations come from translate.wordpress.org; the bundled language files were removed.
- Updated Font Awesome Free to 6.7.2.
1.3.2
- New: standardized “Pro support” sub-tab, first in the Support tab. Pro subscribers send their request to the Dotes team from there (the form comes from the Pro add-on and checks the license); without Pro it shows what Pro support includes. The free plugin sends nothing by itself. The forum and FAQ links of the old “Help” sub-tab moved into it.
1.3.1
- All admin and front-end texts (settings, badges, author page scripts) are now translatable.
1.3.0
- New author page hero: the author’s cover image as a full-width banner, avatar, role, location, bio (long bios collapse with “Read more”) and stats. The “Hero style” setting (full, simple, minimal) now works.
- Signatures redesigned with a single stylesheet; the card layout shows the author cover as a banner. The settings preview now matches the front end and uses the theme content width.
- New author profile block: collapsible sections, signature preview, cover and photo picked from the media library (kept by attachment ID, so they survive domain changes) and the main social networks first.
- Fixed: saving the profile erased the author’s social links.
- The signature now uses the short bio (WordPress “Biographical Info”) and the custom author photo; the full bio is used on the author page.
- Settings that were ignored now work: show bio/avatar/social links, posts per page, AJAX loading (numbered pagination when off), category/tag filters and post counts.
- List layout of the author posts fixed: image on the left, text on the right.
- Front-end styles scoped to the plugin pages (nothing leaks into the theme anymore) and animation names prefixed.
- Removed: Customizer panel (colors are set in the plugin settings), cache dashboard, unused settings and placeholder features.
- Fixed JavaScript errors on the author page, the post editor and the settings page; admin notices are no longer hidden behind the plugin header.
- The author page scripts no longer expose the plugin settings to visitors.
- The page listing all authors moved to the Pro add-on. A page created by older versions for it (holding only the [dotes_authors_page] shortcode) is moved to the trash.
- Co-authorship moved to the Pro add-on. Existing co-authors are kept in the database and come back when the Pro add-on is active.
- The settings screen has a sticky save bar, menu icons matching the tabs and a Pro tab describing the add-on.
- New settings header with the Dotes logo and the version/Pro status; tabs switch with a fade.
- Support tab: FAQ rewritten for the current features and help links that work.
- New developer hooks: dotes_ab_author_posts_query_args, dotes_ab_author_post_count, dotes_ab_signature_container_before and dotes_ab_signature_layout_visual.
1.2.2
- Settings unified in a single option and connected to the front end.
- The co-author display options (contribution type, participation percentage and role) now control what the signature shows.
- Security hardening: capability checks, nonces, escaping and private storage for uploaded files.
- Privacy: personal data exporter and eraser, privacy policy suggestion.
- Removed the licensing code, test and debug tools, the asset minifier and the query optimizer.
- E-E-A-T analysis, author recruitment and the masonry, timeline and hero carousel templates are no longer part of this plugin.
- Font Awesome bundled locally; Google Fonts only on explicit opt-in.
- Front-end assets load only where the plugin outputs content.
- New developer hooks (
dotes_ab_*).