Do you want to redesign the author archive page of your WordPress site, yet have no PHP knowledge? The good news is, it’s not required to master PHP to create a custom author archive page in WordPress. You can create one using Divi Builder and other WordPress page builder plugins that have a theme builder like Elementor and Brizy. In this article, we will show you how to create a custom author archive page in WordPress using Divi Builder. Divi Builder itself is a premium page builder plugin developed by Elegant Themes. It was initially developed exclusively for Divi theme and Extra theme (two WordPress themes developed by Elegant Themes), but you can now install Divi Builder on any WordPress theme.
Divi Builder, just like other page builder plugins, comes with a visual editor that eliminates the requirements of PHP skills to create a custom author archive page as well as other parts of a WordPress theme such as header and footer. Without further ado, let’s get started to proceed with the tutorial section. Will will create a simple custom author archive page as follows.
How to Create a Custom Author Archive Page in WordPress with Divi Builder
Make sure you have installed and activated the Divi Builder plugin on your WordPress site before we get started. Or, if you use the Divi theme, you don’t need to install the Divi Builder plugin anymore as it’s an integral part of the Divi theme. You can get Divi Builder (or Divi theme) on the official website of Elegant Themes.
The custom author archive page we will create consists of only one section. We will add two rows to the section:
- Row 1: To place the author box. We will use the Blurb module to create the author box.
- Row 2: To place the Blog module to display the articles of the current author.
First off, go to Divi -> Theme Builder on your WordPress dashboard. Click Add New Template to create a new custom template. On the Archive Pages section, select the All Author Pages option. Or, if you want to assign the custom author archive template to specific authors, you can select the Specific Author Page option and select the authors your wish. Click the Create Template button to start creating the template.
Next, click the Add Custom Body and select Build Custom Body on the appearing dialog.
On the next dialog, you can select the Start Building option (left most).
Divi Builder automatically adds a new section every time you create a new page or page builder template. Since we only need one section, you don’t need to add a new section.
Row 1
You can simply add the first row. Select a row with a one-column structure and select the Blurb module to add the Blurb module to the row.
The settings panel will appear right after you add the Blurb module. You can make all of the settings as well as the styling via this panel. As we said above, we will use the first row to add the author box. You can read this article for more detailed instructions on how to add an author box in Divi Builder.
Row 2
Once you are done with Blurb module to add the author box on row one above, add a new row by clicking the green plus button on the canvas area. You can also select the one-column structure. Next, find the Blog module and add it to the row.
On the appearing settings panel, you can make the necessary settings. One required setting for the author archive page: you need to enable the Post For Current Page option under the on the Content block under the Content tab.
Also on the Content block, you can set other settings like the number of posts (post count) to be displayed per page, date format, excerpt length, and post offset number.
Next, you can open the Elements block to set the elements to be displayed on the archive page. You can enable/disable elements like featured image, readn more button, author, date, categories, comment count, excerpt, and pagination.
If you want to add a background to the Blog module, you can open the Background block. You can use whether a solid color background, gradient color, image, or video.
Styling up the Blog module
Once you are done making the necessary settings on the Content tab, you can switch to the Design tab on the settings panel to style up the Blog module. First, you can open the Layout block to set the layout of the archive page.
If you want to add an overlay to the thumbnails (feature images), you can open the Overlay block. Enable the Featured Image Overlay option.
To set the border radius of the thumbnails, you can open the Image block. From this block, you can also set the border color, border type, border size, apply CSS filters and blend mode.
To customize the text content (title, excerpt, meta, and read more) of the Blog module, you can open the Title Text block, Body Text block, Meta Text block, and read More Text block. From these blocks, you can set things like the typography (font family, font size, font style, and so on), text color, letter spacing, and so on.
To customize the pagination (if you enable it), you can open the Pagination block. To set the width of the boxes (posts), you can open the Sizing block.
You can play around with the remaining blocks to continue styling up the Blog module. You can add box shadow, set entrance animation, and add CSS filters if you want it.
Don’t forget to click the checklist icon on the settings panel to save the settings you made.
Once you are done editing your custom author archive template, you can click the Save button on the bottom-right corner to save the changes and click the X icon on the top-right corner to exit the Divi Builder editor.
On the Theme Builder page of Divi Builder, click the Save Changes button.
Done! You have just created the custom author archive page on your WordPress site. Without coding.
