Author Tracking Code!

Question

I need help with coding this piece. Basically i want with someone click on my author page. It stored a cookie of that author name and email. I want the cookie to stay in place untill the person close their browser, or however long. not a big deal. I should then be able to use this info in any gravityform on my site. Basically i am tracking leads generated by my authors. If you have a better way of doing this, i am happy for suggestions. Thanks . Heres is my current author.php code to get the author info

<?php
if(isset($_GET['author_name'])) :
$curauth = get_userdatabylogin($author_name);
else :
$curauth = get_userdata(intval($author));
endif;

?>

Answer 1

When you are on an author.php template page, you should be able to get the current author via $wp_query->get_queried_object(). That is also what is_author() uses when you want to check for a specific author.

Do you also have a question about setting the cookies? I don't think WordPress has specific cookie functions. wp_setcookie() is deprecated by wp_set_auth_cookie(), but that seems to do more advanced stuff than just set a simple cookie.

If you use a specific visitor tracking system (like Google Analytics) I'm sure you can also save this kind of "lead" info with them. If you want to know more about that, the Pro Webmasters Stack Exchange site is probably a better place.