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1. aomran
   Member
   Posted 8 months ago #
   

   Hi folks,

   Just a quick question since I've been agonizing about this for some time now. I'm creating a website for a magazine/journal and here are the specifics:

   - The journal has 12 issues (and an issue is released every 4 months). So we're looking at a lot of sections for this website.
   - Each issue has content which is divided into 6-7 categories.
   - Each issue has about 40 articles (including some pages for art galleries).
   - Each issue needs a custom header (i.e. a unique header image and navigation).

   ** Note that this is not a "blog" type of magazine. Content is released once every 4 months.**

   What would be better - a multisite (each issue gets its own site) or custom post types/taxonomies (one for each issue).

   One custom post type for each issue because I need a unique template for each issue (custom header and widgets). Then I would make custom taxonomies to represent the different sections (poetry, fiction, art etc).

   Do you think a multisite with one widgetized theme would be simpler? Since I don't have to make custom post types and taxonomies... and not to speak of the custom templates.

   Any help (comments, suggestions, thoughts etc.) would be greatly appreciated :)

   Best,
   Ahmed

2. Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 8 months ago #
   

   Interesting.

   A CPT per issue would get pretty unwieldy after two years, but so would sites.

   Pages would be insane to organize and you don't get the (easy) customization.

   I want to lean towards a CPT, since the taxonomies are easier, but then thinking of the massive sidebar this would produce makes me wince a lot.

   I'm going to side with Multisite. And I'd make a template site with all my stock pages and categories and tags, and then use Blog Copier to duplicate this site for each new issue. AND if you need a custom header, then grab a theme with an easy to replace one, so you can swap it out via the admin.

   None of the options are perfect, though :/ My only other thought is categories.

   Each Cat is an issue, and then use tags for your 'categories' and have just 'normal' posts with %category%/%postname% as your Permalink slugs.

3. aomran
   Member
   Posted 8 months ago #
   

   What's complicating things is that the board of directors for this journal want to migrate ideas from print media and make them work online. My advice was to create one website for all the issues and then let the visitors filter through the content by issue/section but they are not interested. They want to keep each issue separate (making it hard to navigate the website).

   It looks like I'll be creating a multisite and using blog copier. The headers shouldn't be a problem if I use a widgetized header (or a framework with header hooks).

   Thank you Ipstenu, I really appreciate your insight :)

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