Multiple Authors Plugin fails

I am sure that our site as a publishing site is not the only one that it is a must to be able to have multiple authors per article. To this end we used the “PublishPress Multiple Authors Pro” plugin (you can find it here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Akul2ygARwfdhvIZeMJibxelk–t_g?e=mkJ4dY )

It works well only in one type of post: https://about.gr/article/%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B9%CE%BC%CF%8E%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82-%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%AC%CF%81%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%B9%CE%B5%CF%82/

However we do notice that the plugin fails in the following pages:

https://about.gr/category/abstracts/ – display of the WP user who put the article and not the multiple authors
https://about.gr/current-issue/ – Display of the word Author when single author and also link to his page; No display of the multiple authors (with their attributes), just display the multiple authors in the bottom, yet the link reference is for the first author only.
https://about.gr/author/%ce%b5%cf%85%cf%83%cf%84%ce%ac%ce%b8%ce%b9%ce%bf%cf%82-%ce%b4-%cf%80%ce%b1%cf%80%ce%b1%ce%b2%ce%b1%cf%83%ce%b9%ce%bb%ce%b5%ce%af%ce%bf%cf%85/ – link to the profile page of each author, is erratic. Shows not the number of his/her posts – links to the post page of the actual WP user who published the article – but with erratic statistics (0 posts, 0 comments)
https://about.gr/issue/sept-nov-2016/ – correct display of the single (virtual) authors but not display of the multiple authors
https://about.gr/?s=%CE%91%CF%80%CF%81%CE%B5 – search results display only the actual WP user who published the article

I talked with the authors of plugin who tried to sort out the issue by creating a child theme. Here is what they came back with:

“Something is weird in the theme. Did you change any file in the core of the theme? I already added overrides to the required theme files, but the posts pages are showing something that I don’t see in the code:

Please, could you check and let me know from where the “By” text/tag is coming from? I see this in the code:

<div class=”td-author-by”>By</div>

But I have searched on every file in the theme and didn’t find that. It is important because it says me that the post pages are coming from elsewhere, and we need to find out, otherwise we can’t fix those pages.

A similar thing is happening on the pages that are not working. I have override all the occurrences of

<span class=”td-post-author-name”>Dimitris Vayenas <span>-</span> </span>

with the code to display the authors coming from Multiple Authors, but I still see the default output.

Please, could you check or consult the theme creators asking for some explanation?

Attached is the child theme (already installed on your site) just in case you need to send them for checking.

Looking forward to helping,”

Please find attached here the code of the child theme:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Akul2ygARwfdhvIYUGF6DPxVv1mhRQ?e=5aGq6I

Please help.

Yes it works in articles (which is a type of post) but it is not working in lists of posts such as when you are in category view – a collection of articles etc.

These lists do not provide to us the ability to change the author field to multi-author field.

In order to give a meaningful response I am afraid that there is no other way but to install the plug, create two virtual authors (which are not even WP users), assign these authors in one article and see what happens when you go to the blog view of the posts.

The question is how do we manage the listed authors in a view like this:

or

I am afraid that I was unable to convey my point:

Using Composer 9.8 everything was working fine – see:

However, upon the upgrade to the latest version of the composer our site breaks.

I feel it is your responsibility to explain to us why this is so and make the new composer compatible with the previous version! We have spent about a week of trying to debug and I do not think this is fair.

I checked the two files you suggested (about the authors) – we tried to replace the author/authors files in the legacy/shortcodes in the new version with the author/authors files of the previous version but they do not work.

The plugin developer suggested that the issue has to do with the introduction of the cloud templates, that seem to override the local author/authors files, making the child theme unable to have any impact.

I am looking forward to your help.

In the event that your developers would like access to our site we will be happy to provide you with admin access. Just pm me.

Just a correction to the previous post: The issue appears when the composer plugin is activated in both editions (9.8 and 10).

It appears therefore, that somehow, when the composer is on the child-theme cannot override the settings in the td_block_author/authors. The question is what do we have to do to ensure that they will be overridden.

One more thing as we are nearing to cracking it:

I noticed that the cloud templates are saved locally in this folder:
/wp-content/plugins/td-cloud-library/shortcodes/

Here for example we have the category, author, common etc cloud templates that the site utilises (when tagDIV composer and cloud templates are active).

So the previous question becomes even more specific:
How we can override these templates using a child theme? Please note that in your article here: https://forum.tagdiv.com/adding-multiple-authors-articles/

you note that the approach you presented is not applicable to cloud templates.

Thank you Calin!
We will try this and we hope that it will work.
It would have been great though if you have produced documentation for the cloud templates. For example in my previous message, I noted the presence of author/authors in the cloud plugin folder. I removed it and the site was still working. You should make more clear how the engine operates under the cloud template scenario. The fact that a company that produces plugins and other goodies for wordpress is, after a week, struggling to make it work, should puzzle you. It makes injustice to your great product!

Calin,
we did everything that you suggest but to no avail. The multiple authors plugin still plays perfectly when the tagComposer plugin is de-activate, while when the tagComposer plugin activate (and the cloud templates kickin) we have the same errors.
Similar issues we have with another plugin (issueM) in a different context: When the tagComposer plugin is de-activated, their article type of posts appear fine in the category views. When the tagComposer plugin kicks in, the categories do not show “articles” (which is a type of posts).
We have already invested a week (both ourserlves and the plugin developers).
Do you have a paid support option so that you can figure this out for us? It seems to us that something that it is too obvious for you, escapes the attention of other good developers.