multi-site but not multi-blog/user

  • ciuly

    (@ciuly)


    13 years, 3 months ago

    Hello,

    I’ve been thinking about this for a while and reading didn’t help much. I read some time ago somewhere about using wordpress as a generic CMS. This lit the idea bulb over my head and I can’t shake this scenario ever since:
    My personal needs involve different approaches to content:
    – dedicated blog
    – dedicated forum
    – dedicated photo gallery
    – dedicated article site/section
    – dedicated etc
    This started out a few years ago, and since then, I moved out the blog, forum and gallery out to dedicated sub-domains with specific 3rd party software. I also changed a few CMS scripts for my main site to somehow try and get everything else under the same umbrella/hood.

    But I’m not satisfied. And this is where that long-ago-read article keeps making me waste nights looking for a way to have *everything* under one and the same umbrella.
    And wordpress as a generic CMS really gives a new shine to the problem.

    So, I see there are some plugins usable for my different needs, but I want to take this to the next level because administering 5 installations of wordpress on a single machine is a bit ugly. I currently have 2 installations and it’s already annoying as I have to do the same steps on both when it comes to upgrade/update and install/configure)

    Long story short, I’ve been thinking about using WP multisite to cover my needs. (never installed it so far, and neither did the old MU version)

    Basically, I am the one user that has it all, keeping the different dedicated content on their own subdomains, each with it’s own template but sharing the same plugins and if possible the userbase, so one user logged into photos is also logged into forum and viceversa and hopefully, only specific users being able to add/edit/delete on specific content from specific sub-domains.
    Like, still having users/moderators/admins on the forum (sure, some forum-specific stuff will disappear but that’s livable), which could be different from users/mods on the photo gallery, and again different from users/authors on the article section, and so on (I know about some member plugins that work fine on single-site, but now we’re talking multisite).

    I’m fairly convinced this cannot be done with a click-click-next approach (but I’m ready to be amazed if it can 😛 ). But I’m a pretty good and experienced developer, I’m also my own sysadmin and all. So if there’s coding to be done, I can live with that as long as I don’t have to rewrite the core and I can stick to writing plugins/templates.

    I know this can be done; my question is: can it be done without a humongous amount of work and time? Like say have this all set up and ready to run in a month or two (without migrating the data, of course, which I’ll do using scripts, anyway)?

    Thanks.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    13 years, 3 months ago

    First … You don’t need to have everything under one umbrella unless there’s a NEED. Keep your ‘want’ out for just a second 🙂

    List what you NEED to have. WordPress for a blog is great, but it’s NOT the best photo album. Sure it works, but if ALL you need is a photo album and only you are uploading photos? ZenPhoto may be a better option. MAY be.

    So list the ‘I MUST have this or my site will DIE!’ features.

    Blog, Gallery, Forum, etc…

    Then list WHO needs access to them.

    You may be right at WordPress MultiSite with BuddyPress (or bbPress) is what you want. But you may find out you do need different tools 🙂

    I mean, come on, even WordPress.org has the codex run by MediaWiki. Right tool, right job 😉

    Thread Starter ciuly

    (@ciuly)

    13 years, 3 months ago

    The “need” part is because of administering time and effort. It’s one thing to keep one software uptodate and secure ad it’s anotehr thing to do that for 5 or 6, that have different architectures and so on.
    My needs are simple and can be resumed in one generic need:
    – have a way to publish content organized in categories and be able to control access per user/group for an image/category

    I don’t need over 80% of features provided by photo galleries (and I tried 2 or 2). Same goes for a forum/blog/etc.
    I don’t have time to spend on organizing content, making it look nice and pretty and SEO and shit, dealing with each content entry separately, titles, comments and what not. Beside the blog and article and such where I’ll post something but in the same manner of “the message is important, not how it’s presented”.

    Every hour spent in administering the software, dealing with it’s quirks, not being able to use the same userbase and roles and so on, is time NOT spent with my family OR creating that content I want to publish in my own manner.

    I NEED to spend as little time as possible on the administration and management of the software.
    I know dedicated software is better. But I don’t have time for better. Not to mention the extra “bloat” they bring in.

    I tested quite a few CMSs but they all have a lot of limitations that make it very hard for me to use as one-for-all.
    Now, that article I read presented WP as a CMS that publishes content. Not blog posts but content. I like that. But I’m not sure if it’s as easy as the article presented. I really can’t waste another year with this testing and trying to make it work. That’s why I ask: can it be done in a relatively short period? 1-2 months. Are there any live examples that come close to what I want?

    Andrea Rennick

    (@andrea_r)

    13 years, 3 months ago

    Now, that article I read presented WP as a CMS that publishes content. Not blog posts but content. I like that. But I’m not sure if it’s as easy as the article presented.

    If the posts have no date on them, it’s not a blog.
    If you use pages instead of posts… then it’s “CMS”-like.

    A blog and a listing of articles can be done in ONE install. The terminology is semantics. Programmatically it’s the same thing.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    🏳️‍🌈 Advisor and Activist

    13 years, 3 months ago

    Personally I suggest using posts sans dates, as they’re more computationally friendly.

    http://ottopress.com/2010/category-in-permalinks-considered-harmful/ (scroll down to the part about 50k pages).

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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