Popular Authors v1.1.0
I’m very pleased to announce that Popular Authors v1.1.0 is now available for download/upgrading. Popular Authors is an add-on for Top 10 that I released nearly two years ago. It allows you to display the top authors on your blog based on the number of views that your posts receive. The plugin uses the number of views that are tracked by Top 10.
This release brings in some new features including a Gutenberg block, settings tab and caching. As always, if you have any queries, please raise them in the support forum.
Gutenberg block
With the introduction of full site editing in WordPress 5.9, having a block for the block editor has become an essential part of any plugin. In this version, you can find the Gutenberg block by searching for popular authors or author.
Above are some of the settings (as much as my screen capture allowed!) that the plugin will allow you to modify.
Global settings tab
You can now find a new tab under Top 10 Settings page aptly called Popular Authors which allows you to set the various settings that will be used if none is specified in the widget, block, shortcode or template tag.
Author avatar/thumbnail
You now have a new setting to allow you to display the author’s avatar. It uses get_avatar() under the hood with the same default settings. These settings can be overridden by filtering wzpa_avatar_args.
Caching
With this version, there is a new setting to cache the output of the Popular Authors. When enabled, this uses the same caching settings as Top 10 including a similar cache key. This means that you can also clear the cache by using the same button in the Tools page as you would with the rest of the Top 10 cache.
Full list of changes in Popular Authors v1.1.0
- Features:
- New Gutenberg block. Find it by searching for
popular authorsorauthor - New settings tab added to Top 10 Settings page where global settings for this plugin can be configured
- New setting to display the author avatar
- New setting to cache the output. This option respects the cache settings of Top 10 and uses the similar transient names
- New Gutenberg block. Find it by searching for
- Enhancements/Modifications:
- An admin notice will be displayed if Top 10 v3 and above is not installed
