Astra Author Info Box

Lightweight WordPress plugin that inserts a polished author information box on single post pages, designed to complement the Astra theme.

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What It Does

Displays author avatar, name, bio, post count, and social profile links after (or before) single post content. Hooks directly into Astra theme action hooks so the box renders outside .entry-content — on non-Astra themes it falls back to the the_content filter.

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Features

• Gravatar / user avatar — configurable size and shape (square, rounded, circle)
• Author name, bio, and post count — each element individually toggleable
• Social profile links — Website, Twitter/X, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube
• 3 box styles — Card (shadow), Flat (border), Minimal (accent stripe)
• 6 placement options — top, before/after content, bottom, before/after pagination
• Dark-mode aware — detects Astra's ast-dark-mode body class + prefers-color-scheme
• Responsive — single-column layout on mobile
• Settings page under Settings → Author Info Box with three tabs

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Requirements

• WordPress 5.0+
• PHP 7.4+
• Astra theme (recommended; non-Astra themes supported via fallback)

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Installation

Manual

1. Upload the astra-author-box folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate via Plugins → Installed Plugins.
3. Go to Settings → Author Info Box to configure.

WP-CLI

wp plugin activate astra-author-box

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Settings

Configured under Settings → Author Info Box, organized into three tabs:

Placement

• Placement point: top, before content, after content, bottom, before pagination, after pagination
• Enable on specific post types
• Top / bottom margin (px)
• Max width (px) — 0 for full container width

Elements

• Avatar — show/hide, size (40–200 px), shape (square / rounded / circle)
• Eyebrow label — show/hide + custom text (e.g. "About the author")
• Author name — show/hide
• Post count — show/hide
• Biography — show/hide
• Social links — master toggle + per-network toggles

Appearance

• Box style: Card / Flat / Minimal
• Accent color (color picker)

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Social Links

Each author manages their own social URLs from their WordPress profile:

1. Go to Users → Your Profile.
2. Scroll to Social Profiles (Author Info Box).
3. Fill in URLs and save.

The Website field uses WordPress's built-in user_url. All other networks store URLs in user meta under the key aab_{network} (e.g. aab_twitter).

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Placement (technical)

Setting	Astra hook	Priority
Top of post	astra_entry_top	10
Before content	astra_entry_content_before	10
After content	astra_entry_content_after	10
Bottom of post	astra_entry_bottom	10
Before pagination	astra_entry_after	5
After pagination	astra_entry_after	15

Astra's prev/next navigation hooks to astra_entry_after at priority 10, so priority 5 lands before it and priority 15 after it. On non-Astra themes the box falls back to the the_content filter and receives the aab-fallback CSS class.

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Extensibility

Hooks & Filters

Hook	Type	Description
aab/render_box	filter	Receives full HTML string — return modified version
aab/should_render	filter	Return false to suppress the box
aab/social_networks	filter	Add, remove, or modify social network definitions
aab/template_path	filter	Override any template file path

// Suppress the box on a specific post
add_filter( 'aab/should_render', function( $result ) {
    return is_singular() && get_the_ID() === 42 ? false : $result;
} );

// Add a custom social network
add_filter( 'aab/social_networks', function( $networks ) {
    $networks['github'] = [
        'meta'  => 'aab_github',
        'label' => 'GitHub',
        'icon'  => '<svg ...>...</svg>',
    ];
    return $networks;
} );

Override Accent Colour

Accent colour is injected as --aab-accent on the box element, overridable from any stylesheet:

.aab-author-box { --aab-accent: #e74c3c; }

Template Overrides

Filter aab/template_path to swap any template with a custom file:

add_filter( 'aab/template_path', function( $file, $template ) {
    if ( 'frontend/author-box' === $template ) {
        return get_stylesheet_directory() . '/author-box.php';
    }
    return $file;
}, 10, 2 );

Adding a Social Network

1. Add an entry to includes/social-networks.php with meta, label, and icon keys.
2. Add the corresponding field to AAB_Profile_Fields::$fields.
3. Add the per-network toggle to AAB_Settings::sanitize() and AAB_Settings::defaults().
4. Add the toggle checkbox to templates/admin/settings-page.php.

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Architecture

astra-author-box/
├── astra-author-box.php              Bootstrap + aab_get_template() helper
├── assets/css/
│   ├── admin.css                     Settings page styling
│   └── author-box.css                Front-end styling (CSS custom properties)
├── includes/
│   ├── class-aab-settings.php        Option storage, sanitisation, admin assets
│   ├── class-aab-renderer.php        Placement hooks, data assembly
│   ├── class-aab-profile-fields.php  Social URL fields on the WP user profile screen
│   └── social-networks.php           Social network definitions (icons + meta keys)
└── templates/
    ├── admin/
    │   ├── settings-page.php         Settings page markup
    │   └── profile-fields.php        Profile fields markup
    └── frontend/
        ├── author-box.php            Author box markup
        └── social-links.php          Social icons partial

Strict HTML/logic split. Classes hold zero HTML. All markup lives in templates/. Data flows from class → aab_get_template( 'path', [ $vars ] ) → template.

Settings are stored as a single serialised array under the aab_settings option key. Always use AAB_Settings::get( $key ) — it merges stored values with defaults.

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Changelog

1.4.0

• Extracted all HTML out of PHP classes into templates/ tree
• Added aab_get_template() loader with aab/template_path override filter
• Moved social network definitions to includes/social-networks.php (filterable via aab/social_networks)

1.3.0

• Added before/after pagination placements via hook priority on astra_entry_after
• Restyled the admin settings page

1.2.1

• Added Settings link to the plugin row on the Plugins page

1.2.0

• Tabbed settings page (Placement / Elements / Appearance)

1.1.0

• Box renders outside post content container on Astra; automatic detection + fallback

1.0.0

• Initial release

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License

GPL v2 or later. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html.

Author

Codexpert — codexpert.io