A Jekyll plugin that manages all the author data from _config.yml and _data/authors.*

A list of authors can be declared in _config.yml as an array in authors and/or in a Jekyll data file (ie _data/authors.yml or _data/authors.json).

Note: if an author slug is used in both lists (like benbalter in the examples below) it will keep the information from the _config.yml file and reject the _data/authors.* author data with the same slug.

Example _config.yml:

timezone: UTC

authors:
  garthdb:
    name: Garth Braithwaite
    uri: http://garthdb.com/
    email: garthdb@adobe.com
    twitter: garthdb
  benbalter:
    name: Ben Balter
    uri: http://ben.balter.com/
    email: ben.balter@github.com
    twitter: benbalter

Example _data/authors.yml:

pathawks:
  name: Pat Hawks
  uri: https://pathawks.com
  email: pat@pathawks.com
  twitter: pathawks
benbalter:
  name: The Ben Balter
  uri: http://ben.balter.com/
  email: ben.balter@github.com
  twitter: benbalter

The author information can then be referenced in a post by using the author slug.

For example if a post had the front matter:

---
title: "Super Great Post Title"
author: "benbalter"
---

The layout could use the author information from list:

{% if page.author.name and page.author.uri %}
  <a href="{{ page.author.uri }}">{{ page.author.name }}</a>
{% else %}
  {{ page.author }}
{% endif %}

It is recommended to check if properties needed are available and to fallback to the author if they are not.