danielpataki

Top authors allows yoy to list your top authors with plenty of options. You can set the following in each widget:
<ul>
<li>Widget title</li>
<li>Roles to exclude</li>
<li>Post types to include</li>
<li>Authors to show</li>
<li>4 Preset display templates</li>
<li>Custom display template that allows you to create a completely custom structure and modify the output before and after the list.</li>
<li>Archive (category/tag/taxonomy) specific author lists</li>
</ul>
For a more detailed description of how you can set up custom author lists take a look at the other notes section. The plugin also has some developer friendly features, take a look at the other notes section for more.
<h4>Thanks</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/sebvandijk" rel="nofollow ugc">Seb Van Dijk</a> for donating this plugin to me for free, I owe you one 🙂</li>
<li><a href="http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/" rel="nofollow ugc">Font Awesome</a> for the plugin icon</li>
</ul>
<h4>Usage</h4>
Most of the options for the plugin are self explanatory, I thought I’d highlight the archive specific authors and the display template.
If Archive specific authors is checked the plugin will handle authors differently on category, tag and taxonomy archive pages. It will narrow the posts down to only those in the given archive. Practically this means the following:
Say John wrote 10 posts on the website and Jill wrote 5. On normal pages John would be listed first, Jull would be listed second. However, John wrote 3 posts in the “Food” category while Jill wrote 4. On the archive page for the “Food” category – if Archive specific authors is checked – Jill will be shown first with 4 posts and John second with 3.
When you select “Custom Structure” as the preset display you should see three new fields: Display Template, Before List and After List. These fields can be used to control the HTML display of your authors. To make sure you can use the data retireved by the widget I’ve added placeholders which will be replaced by real data:
<ul>
<li>%posts_url%: The URL to the user’s post archive page</li>
<li>%website_url%: The URL to the user’s website</li>
<li>%gravatar_SIZE%: The gravatar of the user at the given size. For example, to display a 50px Gravatar your would use %gravatar_50%</li>
<li>%firstname%: The user’s first name</li>
<li>%lastname%: The user’s last name</li>
<li>%displayname%: The user’s display name</li>
<li>%username%: The user’s username</li>
<li>%post_count%: Number of posts</li>
<li>%meta_FIELD%: Displays the given meta field. If you store a user’s Twitter name in the ‘twitter’ meta field you could use %meta_twitter% to display it.</li>
</ul>
As of 1.0.9 there is also a custom ID field. This is for advanced use, mainly for developers. It allows for custom CSS stylings and even custom queries on a widget-to-widget basis.
<h4>For Developers</h4>
Currently there are three filters you can use to control the options available in the widget.
<ul>
<li><code>ta/usable_roles</code> allows you to change the roles that can be selected. It should return an array of roles in the form of slug=>name</li>
<li><code>ta/usable_opst_types</code> allows you to change the post_types that can be selected. It should return an array of post type objects</li>
<li><code>ta/post_query</code> allows you to modify the arguments of the WP_Query which retrieves the posts that we look up the authors for. Modify the arguments if you want to force category-specific top authors on single post pages, or other similar uses</li>
</ul>

Top Authors

One of the important options of this plugin for me is the 'visibility' option and i can't get it to work at all.



Love the idea but can't get the visibility option to work

A highly customizable widget that allows you to display the top authors of your website easily.

WPKube

Easily display a list or grid of post authors (or any other user role) and links to their post archives page using a shortcode.
Backend UI can be used to change all the options.
<blockquote>
Introducing New Authors List Pro
 The free version offers a large amount of features for free, and the PRO version comes with even more amazing features for your authors list. 
 Some of those features are Styler, Search and Filters. Styler allows easy change of color/typography/spacing on any of the elements in the authors list. Filters allow you to create a better organization of the authors list. Search allows your visitors to search for specific users. 
 <a href="https://www.authorslist.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Click here to get the PRO version!</a>
</blockquote>
<h4>Shortcode</h4>
All the options are available in the WP admin but you can also use a plain shortcode (as it was in version 1 of the plugin). The shortcode is [authors_list] and accepts the following attributes.
<ul>
<li>style (1,2,3)</li>
<li>columns (2,3,4)</li>
<li>columns_direction ( horizontal, vertical )</li>
<li>avatar_size (any number, example 500)</li>
<li>amount (any number, no limit by default)</li>
<li>show_title (yes,no)</li>
<li>show_count (yes,no)</li>
<li>show_bio (yes,no)</li>
<li>show_link (yes,no)</li>
<li>orderby ( post_count, post_date, ID, login, nicename, email, url, registered, display_name, first_name, last_name )</li>
<li>order ( ASC, DESC )</li>
<li>skip_empty ( yes, no )</li>
<li>minimum_posts_count ( any number )</li>
<li>bio_word_trim ( any number, leave empty for no trim )</li>
<li>only_authors ( yes, no )</li>
<li>exclude ( user IDs separated by comma, example 1,3,4 )</li>
<li>include ( user IDs separated by comma, example 1,3,4 )</li>
<li>roles ( roles separated by comma, example administrator,editor )</li>
<li>latest_post_after ( for example if set to 7 it will only show authors that have posts published in the past 7 days )</li>
<li>name_starts_with ( limit to authors whose display name starts with specific characters )</li>
<li>first_name_starts_with ( limit to authors whose first name starts with specific characters )</li>
<li>last_name_starts_with ( limit to authors whose last name starts with specific characters )</li>
<li>categories ( category IDs separated by comma, example 1,3,4 )</li>
<li>terms ( term IDs separate by comma, example 1,3,4 )</li>
<li>taxonomy ( name of a taxonomy, for example post_tag )</li>
<li>title_element (the element that wraps the name of the user/author, defaults to div, can be any element, for example h2)</li>
<li>link_count (yes, no)</li>
</ul>
Example usage with attributes:
<pre>[authors_list style="2" columns="2" amount="4" show_count="no"]</pre>
There are additional attributes for custom content before and after each element:
<ul>
<li>before_avatar</li>
<li>before_title</li>
<li>before_count</li>
<li>before_bio</li>
<li>before_link</li>
<li>after_avatar</li>
<li>after_title</li>
<li>after_count</li>
<li>after_bio</li>
<li>after_link</li>
</ul>
Example usage with attributes:
<pre>[authors_list before_title="My custom content"]</pre>
These before/after attributes also support dynamic user/author meta fields using
<pre>{al:INSERT_FIELD_NAME}</pre>
Example usage:
<pre>[authors_list before_title="My first name is {al:first_name}"]</pre>
They also support some dynamic output functionality. Currently supports displaying posts links and social links (Yoast SEO needed):
Example usage for posts links:
<pre>[authors_list after_title="{alf:posts}"]</pre>
<pre>[authors_list after_title="{alf:posts type=plain amount=5}"]</pre>
Example usage for social links:
<pre>[authors_list after_title="{alf:social}"]</pre>
Example usage for roles:
<pre>[authors_list after_title="{alf:role}"]</pre>
Example usage for link (the “to” parameter accepts foollowing values: archive bbpress_profile buddypress_profile):
<pre>[authors_list after_title="{alf:link to=bbpress_profile}"]</pre>
Social Icons SVGs by <a href="https://fontawesome.com/license" rel="nofollow ugc">FontAwesome</a> are licensed under CC BY 4.0
<h4>What’s Next</h4>
If you like this plugin, then please consider leaving us a rating / review. This plugin is maintained by <a href="https://www.wpkube.com/" title="WordPress Themes Plugins Reviews" rel="friend nofollow ugc">WPKube</a>, a WordPress resource site, where you can learn from our in-depth guides such as 
<a href="https://www.wpkube.com/what-is-wordpress/" rel="friend nofollow ugc">What is WordPress</a>, <a href="https://www.wpkube.com/best-wordpress-hosting/" rel="friend nofollow ugc">How to choose a WordPress hosting</a>, & more!
<h4>Our Other Projects</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/optin-forms/" rel="ugc">Optin Forms</a>: Simple and easy to use plugin for creating optin forms, works with most well known autoresponder services.</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/simple-basic-contact-form/" rel="ugc">Simple Basic Contact Form</a>: Light-weight contact form plugin</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/subscribe-to-comments-reloaded/" rel="ugc">Subscribe to Comments Reloaded</a>: Email Notification plugin for Comments</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-excerpt/" rel="ugc">Advanced Excerpts</a>: This plugin adds several improvements to WordPress’ default way of creating excerpts.</li>
</ul>

Authors List

Excellent

Use a shortcode to display a list or grid of post authors (or any other user role) and links to their post archives page.

Top Authors vs Authors List