Display all authors and their only one latest post

Question

I have a website with many authors and posts. I need to create a list of all authors and for each one display his latest post (not posts, only one post).

This better explains what I need:

<ul>
    <li>
        <h2>name of the author</h2>
        <a href="his latest post"> Title of his latest post </a>
    </li>
</ul>

This is the code I am using so far which works OK but it's only one loop. I need to create many of these if I want to display all authors automatically:

<ul>
    <?php
    query_posts('showposts=1&author=7'); 
    if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
    ?>
        <li>
            <h2>name of the author</h2>
            <a href="his latest post"> Title of his latest post </a>
        </li>
    <?php
    endwhile; endif; 
    ?>
</ul>

Is there any simple way of doing it with only one loop?

Answer 1

In @Sagive SEO answer get_users_of_blog() is a depricated function.

What is below code do

1. get all authors display name and id in $authorsList

2. Loop threw each author id and use WP_Query to get latest post of each author

      <?php
       $authors=get_users();
       $i=0;
       //get all users list
       foreach($authors as $author){
           $authorList[$i]['id']=$author->data->ID;
           $authorList[$i]['name']=$author->data->display_name;
           $i++;
       }
       ?>
       <ul>
           <?php 
           foreach($authorList as $author){
               $args=array(
                       'showposts'=>1,
                       'author'=>$author['id'],
                       'caller_get_posts'=>1
                      );
               $query = new WP_Query($args);
               if($query->have_posts() ) {
                   while ($query->have_posts()){
                       $query->the_post();
           ?>
           <li>
            <h2><?php echo $author['name']; ?></h2>
            <a href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>"> <?php echo get_the_title(); ?> </a>
           </li>
           <?php
                   }
                   wp_reset_postdata();
               }
           }
           ?>
       </ul>
   

Important Link:

get_users()

Answer 2

i have something i already crated for this purpose so you need to change it
if you don't like how its displayed... anyhow:

In My Opinion you need to:
1. Grab all the authors (into an array)
2. Run trough that array while building the list
3. Kick back and enjoy the results ;)

Please Note...
I think its a bad idea to show all writers in one page
because it might take a lot of time to load so you can
set the amount of authors you wish to show by changing
the variable: $howManyAuthors

Someone else is due credit for the original code but its
long ago since i took it and customized it... if your
checking this out mate - thanks

        <div class="authorsContainer">

            <?php
                //define vars from user selection
                $howManyAuthors = 50;

                //Get users and count of posts put into array 
                $authorsArray=array();
                $blogusers = get_users_of_blog();
                if ($blogusers) {
                  foreach ($blogusers as $bloguser) {
                    $post_count = get_usernumposts($bloguser->user_id);
                    $authorsArray[$bloguser->user_id]=$post_count;
                  }
                  arsort($authorsArray); 
                  $maxauthor = $howManyAuthors;
                  $count=0;
                  foreach ($authorsArray as $key => $value) {
                  $count++;
                    if ($count <= $maxauthor) {
                        $user = get_userdata($key); 
                        $username = $user->user_login;                          
                        $displayname = $user->display_name; 
                        $author_posts_url = get_author_posts_url($key);
                        $post_count = $value;

            ?>  
                    <div class="topWriterBox">
                        <div class="topWriterName">
                            <a href="<?php echo $author_posts_url; ?>"><?php echo $displayname; ?> </a>
                        </div>
                        <div class="topWriterArticles"><?php echo __('Published: ', '').$post_count.__(' Articles', ''); ?></div>
                        <br class="clr" />

                        <h4><?php _e('Latest Article:', ''); ?></h4>

                        <ul>
                        <?php
                          $args=array(
                            'showposts'=>1,
                            'author'=>$user->ID,
                            'caller_get_posts'=>1
                          );
                          $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
                          if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
                            while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); 
                        ?>

                        <!--============ THE AUTHORS ARTICLE DATA ================-->
                            <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permenent Link To <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> <small>(<?php the_time('m.d.y') ?></small>)</li>  

                      <?php
                            endwhile;
                         }
                      ?>
                      </ul>
                    </div><!-- end of topWriterBox -->
                    <?php
                }
              }
            }
            ?>

        </div>

.

You can see an example here (its in hebrew <- not an issue, right gil?

Hope this helps,
Cheers, Sagive.