Author Pane

Author Pane is a block of information about a given user, like those typically found on a forum post, but can be used in other places as well. From core, it collects the user picture, name, join date, online status, contact link, and profile information. In addition, any module or theme can feed it more information via the preprocess system. All of this information is then gathered and displayed using a template file.

Advanced Forum and Advanced Profile Kit will use Author Pane automatically. It can also be used independently of those modules by making use of the provided block, the theme function, or the panels integration.

Module integrations:

The following modules will automatically add information to Author Pane when enabled. Some of these integrations are included in the Author Pane project while others are included in the individual projects. More integrations can be added as explained here.

• Buddylist (D5 only)
• Contact
• Facebook-style Statuses (Integration code in Facebook-style Statuses module)
• Fast Toggle
• Flag friend (Integration code in Flag friend module)
• Location (Contributed by user and not tested, used, or supported by me)
• Organic Groups
• Privatemsg (Integration code in Privatemsg module for D6. Included in AP dev snapshot for D5)
• Profile
• Troll (D6 only. Contributed by user and not tested, used, or supported by me)
• User Badges
• User Relationships (D6 only)
• User Stats (Integration code in User Stats module)
• User Titles
• Userpoints

Installation

1. Copy the entire author_pane module directory into your normal directory for modules, usually sites/all/modules.
2. Enable the Author Pane module in ?q=admin/build/modules.
3. D5 only: If you are using Author Pane outside of Advanced Forum and Advanced Profile Kit, you will need to copy author-pane.tpl.php to the root of your theme's directory. If you are using the block, you will need to copy author-pane-block.tpl.php as well.