Altering the Author Pane template

Author Pane comes with many variables displayed by default because it is easier for non coders to take away than to add. Depending on what integrated modules you have installed on your site, the Author Pane can get quite busy. Fortunately, it is completely customizable without having to hack the module.

The first thing you need to do is determine what template file you are using. This is the trickiest part because Author Pane is designed to be made use of by other modules. You can use the theme developer submodule that comes with the Devel module to help. Here are some likely candidates:

• author-pane.tpl.php: This is the default and is used if you call Author Pane as a theme function.
• advanced_forum.STYLE_NAME.author-pane.tpl.php: This is used and provided by Advanced Forum.
• advanced_profile_author-pane.tpl.php: This is used and provided by Advanced Profile on the user pages.

You will find these in the project directory tree for the respective modules. You will want to copy the file to your theme and modify it there rather than changing the copy in the project directory to avoid upgrade problems. If you can't figure out what file is being used, try adding a line of text with the file name to each of them, clear your cache, and see what shows up.

Once you've figured out which file is in use, open it up in a text editor. If you are editing the original author-pane.tpl.php that comes with Author Pane, you will see a large list of comments at the top which list all the available variables. If you are editing any other version, you'll want to open a copy of author-pane.tpl.php as well so you can see them.

What follows may look like greek if you don't know PHP but it's actually fairly simple. Most of it is HTML to define the DIVs. Here is an example:

The first line says "if the variable holding the contact line is not empty". The second line creates a DIV with a class that says this is a single line and another class that says specifically what line it is. It then follows with the line that actually prints the link stored in the variable $contact. The last line "closes" the question in the first line.

If you're comfortable with HTML, you can change things around quite a bit. Just remember that <?php print $contact; ?> is all one unit that will print out what's in the variable, which is the word that starts with $ and that the variable list is at the top of author-pane.tpl.php.

If you want to add more variables, you will need to learn how to use the preprocess system.

When you're done, make sure to do a hard refresh of the page. You may also need to clear your cache (under performance in D6, in the devel module in D5) to get your change to show up. If neither of these work, you are probably not changing the right file.