Regionality without multisite

  • enuriru

    (@enuriru)


    9 years, 4 months ago

    I’m about to create multi-regional site with very convenient structure.

    1. Cities are custom posts (using PODS)
    2. Every City has a title and “link” field (and more information in the future)
    3. Pages are extended with a “city” custom field (related to Cities)

    The idea
    If there is no page city_link.domain.com/page/ then display (not redirect) default_city_link.domain.com/page/.
    So I can create and modify only one page linked to default city and get the same content for 1000 other cities. And if I ever need to change the content for only one chosen city I’ll just create a modified copy of this page “in” chosen city.

    So I think I need:
    1. Allow page slug duplicate.
    2. Forbid page slug duplicate in single city
    2. Add city link to permalinks (make them city_link.domain.com/page/)
    3. Make WP know in which city we are using domain and display the correct page.
    4. Make WP display default city page if there is no local version.

    In the future:

    5. Make WP console know in which city we are
    6. Add a global dropdown filter that affects all content screens: posts, pages, custom posts — for display all content or only from current/chosen city.
    7. Add an ability to add administrator for chosen cities.

    Why not multisite
    Because I have to copy any new page to all sites then. And do the same if I modify some.

    Why not hierarchical page structure and .htaccess rewrites
    The same.

    I’ve been looking for at least partial solution but not succeeded.
    Any suggestions?

    Thanks in advance.
    Den.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    9 years, 4 months ago

    It’s not possible to allow duplicate slugs for any given post type. You don’t need this functionality anyway. By using sub-domains, it’s going to involve rewrite rules, which are not the same as redirects, though similar. No way around it, and there is no harm in it. All permalinks involve rewrites, it’s how WP works. Unless you can (and want to) add sub-domain aliases for every city, your DNS must allow wildcards.

    You can achieve the bulk of this with a single template and some custom fields for each city for each section of the template. The template is setup to grab the custom field for the current city. If none exists, some default content is output instead.

    Thread Starter enuriru

    (@enuriru)

    9 years, 4 months ago

    Thank you for your reply!

    It’s not possible to allow duplicate slugs for any given post type.

    The same time Polylang plugin allows this. And forbids duplication in single language. I tried to dig up the code but haven’t enough WP experience to figure out how it works 🙁

    OK, I can choose another way and make a hierarchical page structure like

    -default
--page1
--page2
-city1
--page2 (local version)
-city2

    Then,
    1) How could I “hide” the top level page slug from permalink and add it to domain? domain.com/city1/page/ -> city1.domain.com/page/
    2) How to hook 404 error right and display default city page if there is no local?

    I wrote the city detection already.

    
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', 'detect_city');

function detect_city() {

	// TODO: rewrite to Singleton.

	global $wp_city;
	
	if (!defined('PODS_VERSION')) return;
		
	$parts = explode('.', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']); //CITY.domain.com
	if (count($parts) < 3) { // No CITY?
		$city_slug = 'default';
	} else {
		$city_slug = $parts[0];
	}

	// Get the city from PODS

	$wp_city = pods('city', $city_slug);
	define('WP_CITY', $wp_city->display('id'));
}
    • This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by enuriru.
    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    9 years, 4 months ago

    Polylang is probably using a different post type for each language, so the no duplicates rule still applies. Like I said, there’s no need anyway.

    You can alter permalink structures with the Rewrite API. Not finding a city term does not result in a true 404 file not found error because permalinks never lead to true files in the first place. The lack of a proper term results in the query failing to return anything. This condition is handled right on the template as the else condition to if ( have_posts() )

    Sometimes the query will result in the 404.php template being loaded when the permalink cannot even be deciphered by the query. You can alter this file any way you want, but before doing that, consider why it’s being loaded instead of the template with the loop. If all is working correctly, the 404.php would never be loaded and the lack of a city term is handled by the else condition.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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