[Resolved] How to Dynamically Change the author_base URL Slug by Language in WordPress?

Hi,

before your ticket is assigned to one of my colleagues, please allow me to walk you through some initial debugging steps. This will help speed up the support process.

Instead of using the language constant on $current_language, you can call a filter: https://wpml.org/wpml-hook/wpml_current_language/.

apply_filters('wpml_current_language', NULL);

Using wpml_switch_language offers several benefits. It ensures that the author_base is updated whenever the language changes, maintaining correct URLs across different language contexts. The implementation also needs to flush rewrite rules when the language is switched. In your case, it may be sufficient to call it only when the language setting changes, rather than on every single page load with something like

...
        if (array_key_exists($current_language, $author_slugs)) {
            $wp_rewrite->author_base = $author_slugs[$current_language];
        } else {
            $wp_rewrite->author_base = 'author';
        }
        
        // It's crucial to flush rewrite rules, but we do it only when necessary
        $wp_rewrite->flush_rules(false);
    }
}

If you need further help, I recommend you contact one of our certified contractors, who can help you implement that custom solution. You can find them here: https://wpml.org/contractors/.

Best Regards
Marcel

Hi,

This would force my site to flush the rewrite rules every time someone enters the site, and every time someone uses the language switcher.

WordPress provides an API for storing, retrieving, and updating options in its database. These options can be used for various settings within a WordPress site, ranging from simple theme settings to more complex plugin data management. The functions involved typically are:

get_option($option, $default): Retrieves an option value based on its name. If the option does not exist, it returns a default value.

update_option($option, $value): This function updates the value of an option. If the option does not exist, it will be created.

My basic idea was to prevent that when you adjust author_base according to the site's current language, you also save this setting (i.e., the current language) as an option in the WordPress database. This record tells you what the author_base was last set to. The next time a request comes in, before making any changes to the author_base and flushing the rewrite rules, the code first retrieves the LAST saved language setting from the WordPress options. It then compares this saved value with the current language setting.

If the current language matches the saved option value, there is no need to change the author_base or flush the rewrite rules because it indicates that there have been no changes since the last setup. If they do not match, it updates the author_base, flushes the rewrite rules to apply the change, and updates the saved option to reflect the new current language.

That way you avoid unnecessary flushes of write rules and minimize the impact on your site's performance, as that changes are only made when the configuration of the language setting changes in the backend, not merely when a user switches the language on the frontend of the website.

Best Regards
Marcel