I had a similar issue in my 1.8 installation and found [url=http://manual.b2evolution.net/Assigned_author]the solution here[/url]. the original discussion is [url=http://forums.b2evolution.net/viewtopic.php?t=9397]here[/url].

It's not quite what you asked for but it has the same effect. You will need to set up an identity for each of the names you wish to post under, but you do not need to log in and out to use them, you can stay logged in as admin and simply change the assigned author at posting time or edit it at any time thereafter.

When someone clicks on the email the author icon and then the form is not there!? Yes, looks like I have heaps more work to do but I wonder if there is any point if the new B2Evo requires skin updates anyway?

And when you post to a comment using the comment form it inserts the identity that you are logged in as, not the author of the blog (post) ?

Or how do I get the name actually displaying beside the email envelope icon? I have tried with and without the () at the end of the first line.

Sorry if this is a blond question but I am still struggling with this code stuff, and I presumably have a *real* life outside this computer!

;)

Ok, a few questions. Have you installed Topanga's hack as shown in the docs? I suspect so from what you said. If so, note there are two different versions in the docs, one for all the details (including message form) and one with just the name. Did you install the first or second version, and did it work at all/partly/not at all?

My solution is not a hack at all.
Since I only do 1 custom thng in a skin, that is not called a hack ;)
I don't touch the core.
And I do this allready since 0.9. Just because people send me post by email, andI post them on the blog 'being them'.
So the 'contact author' and 'show author' is correct.

In my new skin I even work with pictures of the authors

<div class="post-avatar">
<?php $Item->get_creator_User();
if( $Item->assigned_user_ID ) 
{ 
$the_author = $UserCache->get_by_ID( $Item->assigned_user_ID ); } 
else 
{ $the_author = $Item->creator_User; } 
echo '<a href="'.$the_author->url.'" title="Browse all articles from '.$the_author->get_preferred_name().'">'.
'<img src="http://www.tenderfeelings.be/media/avatar/'.$the_author->ID.'.jpg" alt="'.$the_author->get_preferred_name().
'" title="'.$the_author->get_preferred_name().'" /></a>';?> 
</div>

And btw : please update at least to 1.10.3. That is the latest stable relase. You version is deprecated.
the skins in 2.x have changed dramaticaly (and are stable to stay) so that is for if you have spare time.

*edit*
breaking code to fit forums

I installed the first lot of code, putting the second block inside the first php set of brackets so it looks like this:

<?php $Item->get_creator_User(); 
  if( $Item->assigned_user_ID ) 
    { 
    $the_author = $UserCache->get_by_ID( $Item->assigned_user_ID ); 
    } 
    else 
    { 
    $the_author = $Item->Author; 
    } 
    echo '<a href="'.url_add_param( $Blog->get( 'blogurl', 'htmlattr' ), 'author='.$the_author->ID).
'" title="Browse all articles from '.$the_author->get_preferred_name().'"><img src="rsc/icon_16_author.gif" border="0"></a>';
$the_author->msgform_link( $Blog->get('msgformurl'),' ',' ','#','Send an e-mail to '.$the_author->get_preferred_name(),'' );
	?>

*edit*
breaking code to fit forums

And what was the result? Can you give us a link to follow so we can look at it please?

PS sorry for terminology imprecision, Topanga. Hack or no, it was very useful for me.

NB: 7doves has kindly PMd me the url of the pre-production blog.

Ok, I've been looking at the message form problem on your blog 13 - you do have a lot of blogs, don't you? Shouldn't be a problem though. The symptom is that when you click on the little email icon at the start of the post, you go to a screen with sidebar, header, but no content. The entire main area is blank. This should be the msgform screen but obviously isn't working. I've looked at the link that the email icon uses and this seems to be well-formed, so the problem may not lie with your skin but with the msgform itself.

First, does the message form work on any of your other blogs, or (even better) from any other link within the blog 13? If so, say where so we can compare.

Second, have you tried [url=http://manual.b2evolution.net/Debugging]turning on debugging[/url] to see if any obvious errors pop up? if not, do this and if it doesn't adversely affect your other blogs leave it turned on if that's OK so I can look.

Third, do you really want to expend all this effort making an old version of b2e to work? Why not install 2.4 and gain the benefits thereof? It'll take some work but then it will take some work either way.

Thanks filthio for having a look.

I have replied to 1) and 2) but you can skip right to 3) if you like as I am becoming more convinced that this is the right way to go despite the work it may entail - sigh!

1) We don't actually have that many blogs that we want to go live. We are working on 4 to try and get them running at present with another 4 in the pipeline, but when we set them up B2Evo numbered them 0,1,2,3....5,6......10,11,12,13. It skipped a few in between!

2) I get what you are saying with the msgform perhaps not being there - is it possible that this skin wpc_default did not have it packaged with it? Or does not have the code to handle it? Or even when we copied the files to a new directory with the thought of re-designing it, we broke the links?

The 'leave a comment form' appears under each post in this blog but when submitted reveals a 404 page not found error - is this the same code?

The email me icon/ comment form/leave a message form works from the first 4 blogs.

3) If I download 2.4x and work at re-creating my main skin (based on Nifty Corners) using the code to update it in the guide; and re-build the side bar using containers....can I then somehow 'overlay' the skin and the upgrade over the 1.9x so there is a seamless upgrade. [I don't understand how the containers work as far as whether they are coded in the index.main.php of each blog or in a generic added file.

If it changes the index.main.php only then I can understand that I would be able to work on upgrading the skin, then save its index.main.php; do the upgrade and then overwrite the index.main.php for that particular blog.

Put another way....can I prevent having to do the upgrade from 1.9x to 2.4x and then taking the time to bring the skin code up to scratch without the blog being 'down'?

Thanks so much for your willingness to help and I look forward to your reply.

1) we have established that the msgform on your blog 13 doesn't work anywhere, but it does on the other blogs running on the same system. So it's likely to be something wrong with the skin setup. We can test this by forcing a skin, so if you type your blog URL as follows:

http://yourdomain.com/index.php?skin=custom

you'll see a slightly different skin appear, and lo, the msgform works. :D

So given that you have not done much to the skin yet the easiest answer is to download the skin you want again and reinstall it. That should fix the messages and hopefully the comments as well.

2) I think that's covered above- we may not need debugging if this works.

3) If you upgrade your b2evo installation you will need to upgrade ALL of your blogs. You can't do one at a time. The best way to achieve this with minimal downtime is if you can make a test installation of b2e 2.x on a completely different server (or a local server if you have the means), whilst leaving your existing installation running. On the test server get all the blogs looking how you want - this will inevitably take some time - and then upgrade the live version and finally install the new skins you have developed. There would be a bit of downtime even then.

However as far as I can see your blogs are all pretty similar, with modest modifications to the skins. I assume you have not modified the blog files outside the skins. So if you don't have any testing server available to you, you could probably do worse than just upgrade the lot and recustomise your skins on the fly, saving all the graphics etc first. Users will notice a bit of disruption but they will almost always be able to read the blog and use it.

Do let us know how you get on.

First let me say I am impressed that you worked out what was 'wrong' in the skin vs msgform query - it was a little scary seeing someone 'force' this on one of the blogs from the outside and not even being in admin!

I am not sure what you mean by

I assume you have not modified the blog files outside the skins.

I like the idea of installing 2.x on another part of the server, developing the skins; upgrading 1.9X to 2.x.

So are you saying that all the modification data that you may make (ie containers in the side bar etc) is 'saved' in the skin itself and doesn't reference any other file outside of that?

If I need to change the CSS do I still have to do this back-end?

Just to spell it out for my benefit....

1) install 2.x simultaneously
2) choose each skin to modify (renaming it in the front end admin if I don't mind overwriting the file or back end if I'd like to save the file for use again)
3) do the work
4) upgrade 1.9x to 2.4 by overwriting the files?
5) select each 'new skin' to apply it to each blog

So effectively you are developing a new skin for 2.x that sits there like the other defaults and waits to be selected?

Hey, your praise might go to my head! Now go steady! :)

Your numbered list of jobs isn't quite right - forgive me if I've been obscure. I'll go through your queries than make my own list to see if I've explained myself well enough.

If you want to have two versions of B2evo running at the same time, you must be very careful not to muddle them up. You can safely assume that skins etc for 2.x do not work with anything from 1.x. So what I'm not suggesting is sharing any skins or other bits between 1.x. and 2.x, as that won't work. I am suggesting that you build a complete new installation of 2.x, and complete new custom skins, from scratch. As your skins are not highly modified this should not be very hard.

Because of this potential for confusion I strongly suggest that if you can do so, you have your testing server somewhere well apart from your production blogs and on a separate server entirely if you can. You will definitely need a completely new database to play with, so you'll need to know how to do that.

What I meant by modifying the blog files is that I assume you have not changed any files in the rest of the blog apart from the ones in your skin. I'm pretty sure you have not from what I've seen. Reason is that if you have, when you upgrade these changes will be lost. But actually, once you upgrade you probably won't need any such changes to start with, so it's not that important.

Modifications to the widgets and containers which feature in 2.x is not part of the skin, it is (I guess) held in the database of the blog itself, or something. Either way, you don't have to worry about how it does that, it just works.

Changing css does indeed require that you edit the file called style.css in the 2.x skin folder. It's pretty straightforward if you;re familiar with css.

So, my suggested action plan for you:

1. Find a server and database that you can use with impunity for a few weeks as a testbed.
2. Install a clean, new 2.x installation on it, and make it work
3. Create as many blogs as you will need on the new installation, using the test data (not your own data, this is still on the live blog).
4. Modify the skins as much as you like until they look good. Learn about widgets etc by playing with them.

NB: Your live blog is still untouched at this stage. Only when you're happy that you have four (or however many blogs you want) skins ready to use, is it time to get working on the real live blog.

5. On the live blog make a backup of all your blogs files and data so whatever happens you can roll back. Read docs to find out how.
6. Install 2.x over your existing 1.x installation, [url=http://manual.b2evolution.net/Upgrade_from_an_older_version]using this advice[/url] and say a few appropriate words of exhortation. Hopefully it will upgrade the database and you will be running a 2.x installation.
7. Now copy the custom skins you have made on the testing server over to your new live server. Install the custom skins.
8. Choose the custom skin you want for each blog. Now it should all work!
9. You can abandon your testing server once it all works.

Apparently there were several changes that we had to make to files outside the skins - stub files, htaccess, comment.php and others.

Which raises another question. In order to get one of the blogs working it needed a stub file although I didn't really want it there as it lengthens the url.

What happens to this when you upgrade?

Can I do away with it and just write something in the .htaccess file that re-routes old urls to the new (non stub file) url?

I think I am using the right terminology even though I only barely understand what it does and not how to do it - but you can find everything online anyway! ;)

I don't really know about stubs. I've never knowingly used them. But I've managed to have a 1.8 system with 2 blogs co-existing perfectly happily, and now a 2.4 system with one blog, still no playing with stubs. So I don't think changing stubs is essential for the straightforward blogging you are intending to do. Anyway, if you do set up a test 2.x system you can find out about that there.

As far as your changes are concerned, just make sure you back up all your files and the database and know how to put them back. Then if it all goes wrong you can restore things to how they were.

As for URLs you really should try to make the new URLs the same as the old ones, for obvious reasons. This should be possible with careful use of the settings.