Multiple node authors in Drupal

Post date: March 27, 2013

While working on the current website of Radio Študent, I wanted a node to have multiple authors, because many of the published articles were collaborations of multiple writers. I presumed Drupal would support this out of the box, since it seems like a relatively common situation, but it didn’t. So here’s how you can do it manually.

Step 1 - Content type modifications

1. Add a user reference field allowing multiple values to the content type in question. References module is required for this.
2. Inform editors this field should be used to enter all additional authors besides themselves when publishing articles.
3. Edit node template or use Display Suite to customize node display and include your newly created field next to the primary author.

Step 2 - Profile page modifications

Having references to all authors on the node is cool, but we also need to show all nodes of a single author on his profile page, whether he’s the main author or just entered among additional authors in our new field.

1. Create a page view using Views and call it All nodes by user or something similar.
2. Set the URL of the view to /user/% so that it will override default user profiles.
3. Install this patch for Views to allow passing of values from contextual filters to regular filters.
4. Filter nodes that have user ID from URL in Author field or in Additional authors field you created earlier.

I admit it’s not the cleanest thing ever, especially with the patch requiring manual reapplication whenever Views are updated, but it seems to work well.

I was given a possible alternative solution when I posted this problem on Stack Overflow. It sounds even more promising, though I didn’t use it at the time, because I had issues with Rules (ongoing problem since my childhood).