WordPress Users
Today I want to take a quick look at WordPress users: how to change how your name appears next to your posts, and how to add new users to your blog (and make sure they can't do anything you don't want them to).
If you've got a brand new install of WordPress, you've probably just got one user, and that user is probably called something like "admin". Which is all very well for signing into the WordPress admin section, but probably not the name you want next to your posts.
Editing your profile
Click on the "Users" tab from the Dashboard and you'll see a list of all the users currently registered on your blog. To change profile info, click on the relevent user name. You can change and add a lot of information on this next screen: most of it isn't necessary because it doesn't show up in most themes (but see below if you want it to). 
Options that you will probably want to fill out are the real name and nickname fields; these are what WordPress uses to determine the name that it gives for the author of your posts. It'll make some suggestions in the drop-down box next to "Display name publicly as", but if you don't like any of those,
- add the display name you want to the nickname field,
- click the "update profile" button
- then select the new nickname from the drop-down list
- and update your profile again.
Changing your password
Scroll to the bottom of your user profile, and the form to change your password is there. Though it's tempting to abandon the hideously random one WP auto-generates, do pick something reasonably secure 
Changing your avatar
The "avatar" is the little picture which shows up beside your name in the users' list, and also beside your comments in most new-ish WP themes. If you have the shadowy person-shape, or worse still the blue Gravatar logo, go to Gravatar.com and sign up for an account.
If you want to change your picture, again that needs to be done through Gravatar not through the WordPress dashboard. And if you want multiple pictures to use depending on where you're writing, you can also do that through Gravatar.
Adding the author's information to the post
Not all themes include the author's name next to the post. Some people think that if there's only one author, it's pretty pointless having their name on all their posts. I disagree: I'd like to be top of Google for my own name, and having it on every blog post I write will help that. And of course, if you have a multi-author blog, you probably want to have each writer's name by their posts.
If your theme's missing this information, it's easy to add in: Post written by <?php the_author(); ?> will add the "display name publicly" field to your blog, and there are several other tags to show the author's first or last name, email, URL, description, etc. etc. If you have a lot of guest posters, you can use this information to - for example - display a short bio at the end of the post.
Adding more users
Click on Users > Add New to add a new user (yes, it's that simple ). You'll have to fill out the username, email address and password; WordPress will then email details of the registration to your new author. You'll also need to select what role you want the new user to have; which you pick will depend on how much freedom you want them to have on the blog.
- Administrators can do anything, including adding and removing plugins and themes, and removing other users.
- Editors can publish and edit all posts*, but cannot change the appearance or functionality of the blog.
- Authors can publish and edit their own posts, but no one else's.
- Contributors can write and edit their own posts, but not publish them.
- Subscribers can only leave comments
If you want your new user to be able to publish their own posts without your approval, you might make them an Author; if you'd prefer to check over what they've written first, make them a Contributor. It's easy to alter a user's access level (just change it from Dashboard > Users), so I would recommend choosing a lower level and increasing it if necessary; making everyone an Administrator is potentially asking for trouble.
* WordPress 2.7.1 doesn't allow Editors to edit Administrators' posts. It's not quite clear at the moment if this is deliberate or a bug; I guess we'll find out when 2.8 is released later this month!
Tags: administrator, author, change password, contributor, editor, subscriber, user level
Posted by Sue on April 19, 2009 in NPG2WP.
Hi there. This is quite helpful, but I do have a question. Where do I put: Post written by so that I can add this? I've been searching the internet for many hours, and still can't figure out the proper file (php) and where in the code to add that simple line. Any advice? Thank you.
Hi Jen,
The template tag you want is the_author() - that will add the post author's name. Where you add it will depend on where you want the name to appear. e.g. if you want it on the single post page, probably that's single.php and you'd want to put it either just after the_title() or at the end of the post, somewhere after the_content but still within the loop.
If you want it to show up on the home page, archives, search results - those are **probably** index.php, archive.php, search.php respectively... but might not be, depending on your theme! Give me a shout if you need more help.
Including the author name worked, however I have two more questions
1) How to get hyperlink to author profile/home page
2) How to get category & tags attached to this blog post. I would like to display on single blog post.
1) the_author_link()
2) the_category() - the_tags()
Sue,
Your website is fantastic. I have already bookmarked it and will return here often for the WP goodies here.
One question about the above topic. I am new to wordpress and have just started a multi-author blog.
The theme we are using does not include the author after posts, (except in the permalink).
where would I go to change this so that it displays on the homepage with all the posts together. I hope that is clear.
If you just want the name of the author, use the tag the_author() - where you need to add it depends on your theme, but most likely home.php if you have one and index.php if you don't.