How to create multi site page inheritance?

tjsherrill
(@tjsherrill)

13 years, 9 months ago

I am looking at setting up an MS wordpress install. I think that will suit my needs the best. Basically, I have a client who has a business in Town X, but wants to branch out to Town Y. They have XYZcompany.com and want to setup XYZcompany.com/townx & xyzcompany.com/towny. This seems like a great fit for the new WP 3.0.

Sorry for so much back story, but there will also be the main xyzcompany.com site and all the non-city based content. Is it possible to create a page inheritance where the site for town X inherits the content for a page from the main site? Say for example an About page, the text would all be the same but in the Town X page there would be the addition of the town name.

My thought is to create duplicate theme’s with minor changes in the code to reflect city info. For instance, (and I know this is basic);
<div>New York <?php the_loop ?></div>. I know I am dumbing it down, but would that work?

I am not looking for someone to completely answer the question. Unless there is a simple answer, but I am trying to learn how this MS stuff works. Thanks

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 18 total)

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Andrea Rennick
(@andrea_r)

13 years, 9 months ago

When each site is created, it pulls the defaults. This plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpmu-new-blog-defaults/

will set a LOT for you. I can;t remember if it does pages, but I think it does.

For pulling the city name, just add some php to the theme to pull the blog name, if that’s the same as the city name.

cmunns
(@cmunns)

13 years, 9 months ago

This plug-in does not do pages or .xml content. Is there way to provide an option on the signup page where users can choose a default theme/page/post setup. I know I can set default theme with this plug-in, but I also want certain content associated with each default theme e.g. pages, templates, images, etc and want the user to decide if possible.

Alternatively, it would be acceptable to have the users choose themes, and have each theme be automatically filled with a certain .xml file instead of sharing same db…would that be too cumbersome?

Thread Starter tjsherrill
(@tjsherrill)

13 years, 9 months ago

andrea,

So you are saying that Multisite automatically pulls from the default? That would be fantastic but doesn’t make sense to me.

If I have Parent site and two child sites and I create an About page on the parent site, my understanding would be that it would not create an identical page on both sub sites.

Am I incorrect?

thanks for the help, its very appreciated

Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)
(@ipstenu)

🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

13 years, 9 months ago

If I have Parent site and two child sites and I create an About page on the parent site, my understanding would be that it would not create an identical page on both sub sites.

Kind of.

The about page that gets created IS the same. They’re pulled from the default settings. Go to Super Admin -> Options and you can see what the defaults are for First Post, First Page and First Comment.

If you create a main site and add posts etc and THEN create a Sub Site, the sub DOES NOT get everything the main has, just what’s in default.

Thread Starter tjsherrill
(@tjsherrill)

13 years, 9 months ago

Ok, this is great info… I really appreciate it.

So how would one of you do this if you had to? I think the site title or custom field option could handle the city name. But I want to make sure I have a solid method to handle page inheritance.

Basically the parent page will have many pages, and I need those pages to be inherited by the child sites. Is this a custom solution? Or is there a method to handle this through the default options.

thanks so much

Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)
(@ipstenu)

🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

13 years, 9 months ago

Sites don’t inherit from each other, so yeah, this would be a custom solution. I don’t know any plugins off hand that do this. Maybe sitewide tags (which has a lot more than just that). I know someone’s working on a site ‘clone’ type feature, but…

cmunns
(@cmunns)

13 years, 9 months ago

The site wide tags just aggregates all posts onto one blog. This would be sweet if someone came out with a clone solution.

Andrea Rennick
(@andrea_r)

13 years, 9 months ago

Basically the parent page will have many pages, and I need those pages to be inherited by the child sites. Is this a custom solution? Or is there a method to handle this through the default options.

You’re in custom territory.

By default, each site is independent.

I know I can set default theme with this plug-in, but I also want certain content associated with each default theme e.g. pages, templates, images, etc and want the user to decide if possible.

Alternatively, it would be acceptable to have the users choose themes, and have each theme be automatically filled with a certain .xml file instead of sharing same db…would that be too cumbersome?

That’s also a highly custom job. 😉

Andrea Rennick
(@andrea_r)

13 years, 9 months ago

Also see this post for links to add extra pages by default.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/auto-create-pages-at-user-sign-up?replies=5#post-1619897

livephoenix
(@livephoenix)

13 years, 8 months ago

tjsherrill, I am looking for a very similar solution.

My site is site.com and I’d want site.com/uk to have many pages inheriting from site.com (because they both basically contain the same content.)

Andrea_r, thanks for the link. But it seems that kinda handles the part where in a new blog should start with some default set of pages/posts.

However, when I add a new page to site.com (my main site), is there a way, I can make it appear under site.com/uk automatically? I guess that is the scenario for which you said we are entering custom area. Does that mean that I’d have to post the page separately under each site?

Has anybody ever had a similar situation?

Andrea Rennick
(@andrea_r)

13 years, 8 months ago

Does that mean that I’d have to post the page separately under each site?

yep. by default, that’s how it works.

livephoenix
(@livephoenix)

13 years, 8 months ago

Thanks Andrea. So I guess till some plugin comes around to handle the situation, I’ll do just that!

Thanks everyone here!

raskull
(@raskull)

13 years, 8 months ago

You could have each child site’s About page subscribe to the parent site’s About page via rss.

Andrea Rennick
(@andrea_r)

13 years, 8 months ago

Look at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpmu-new-blog-defaults/ for setting up default pages.

raskull
(@raskull)

13 years, 8 months ago

Sorry, I read that wrong, I thought you wanted content from a default page to update dynamically across all the sites, but it sounds like you want the page set to update dynamically. Plugins that allow you to add default pages to new blogs are done and over after the “new” part.