Multiple Blogs with one user base

  • I have a site that requires a couple of different areas that I don’t think categories will work as there are some things I can’t get regular wordpress to do. I want all of the following to use the same user database – not the same database, but the same user login for each blog or area. This would be easy if all of the below could somehow be installed into one WordPress install but I’m not sure it can – which is why I’m asking. For the most part, they can use the same theme too. The blogs or areas are as follows:

    1) I have a “faq” section that functions as a blog that I author everything. There is a nested category system and then I put in posts in each section: mysite.com/faq

    2) I have a site map “blog” where I create pages that show where all the content is for each section. mysite.com/sitemap

    3) I have the front page which uses a custom index.php to display a nice page. You can do this easily by putting it into a theme to use as the index.php. mysite.com

    4) I have 2 external domains that are news blogs on the same server. The theme is virtually the same but I’d like to slightly change the header for each one of them. mysite2.com and mysite3.com with their own categories for their own posts.

    With WordPress MU, this would in theory make it relatively easier. Setting up all these blogs as one user should give you unified login/logout on all your blogs, from what I understand. But I’ve discovered that, especially with it being built to forcibly not use the www it can be a real pain trying to manage. (try going to my.wordpress.com by “accident” and you get error pages that the database can’t connect, etc.) I get the general feeling that using the standard wordpress might be a better use.

    Here is what would be great – to stick “pages” instead of posts under specific categories, which would have helped me in the “maps” area where these are just static pages that don’t use comments (and should be no warning shutting them off). How have you guys used WP to create multiple blogs or areas on your site? Could you use just one install in the root and use categories to somehow accomplish the above? How about the external subdomains? I’d really appreciate hearing from you as I’m close to launching the site and I’ve discovered these challenges. Thank you!!!!!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

  • I’m not sure I have a solution to what you are trying to do, but in response to:

    With WordPress MU, this would in theory make it relatively easier. Setting up all these blogs as one user should give you unified login/logout on all your blogs, from what I understand. But I’ve discovered that, especially with it being built to forcibly not use the www it can be a real pain trying to manage.

    The site below is built with WPmu and www simply redirects to the address without www. Click the link below and you will see it just redirects. Connect to any blog on the site and add www and you will see it simply redirects.

    So, if you think MU will work for you, I’m not sure the www will be a problem as long as the site is configured properly.

    https://www.kentuckyclassroom.org/

    I’ve had success installing multiple blogs, all using 1 set of ordinary WP install files, with this technique called Virtual Multi-Blog. It is awesome. Runs with regular WP, does not use WP MU.
    https://striderweb.com/nerdaphernalia/features/virtual-multiblog/

    @dgold: Virtual Multiblog for WP – correct me if I am wrong, but per faq, you are not automatically logged in all blogs when you log in one blog? Still, looks like it has expanded since I checked Multiblog v1.0 late 2006 before cpting for WPMU then ?? WP-Hive for multiblog looks interesting as well per docs.

    @thelaw: The above are plugins/scripts which enable multiple blogs in different ways. WPMU can handle what you want, you just need to be able meet server requirements and have the skill set to set up the site as you need and to maintain it.

    That’s correct by default on VMB method you would log in to each blog individually. Now, I think there is a method for making them share 1 user’s table. So then you actually could log into all at the same time.

    For me so far, I think I like the separate logins. As the Admin, I have the same login-password on each, and it’s usually saved as a Cookie on my machine so it’s quick. For the users I think I like having them on separate installs, but I might consider moving to 1 user table some time.

    Thread Starter thelaw

    (@thelaw)

    figaro – thanks for the suggestion. WordPress MU is screwed up and whomever is leading development is a stubborn mule. Many of us with established sites have them on https://www.domain.com, not depracated. Going to your kentuckyclassroom.org site illustrates the problems I have.

    (1) Going to https://www.kentuckyclassroom.org shoves you right back to https://kentuckyclassroom.org. Yes there is a “hack” to undo the depracation but it’s not perfect and requires managing every other stupid upgrade that says “no www on the web.” They have this idea that they will teach Google and highly paid webmasters a lesson by “forcing” the world to use no www.

    (2) Try going to my.kentuckyclassroom.org – an accidental type, etc. You’ll get a page not found or an internal WP MU “no blog here” error. WP MU is too much trouble to manage with big holes like this. They should have just left the bloody “www” alone and stuck with stuff that is NECESSARY.

    Dgold and Mercine: There is a hack that allows 1 user table. It’s really simple – all you do is install each blog into the same database multiple times, with each time using a different database prefix, e.g. wp1_ for the first, wp2_ for the second, etc.

    This isn’t perfect either although I don’t care if I need to copy the same plugins to each blog. I may not even use them all on each blog and rather change them depending upon the directory. That’s not too difficult to maintain. However, as I appreciate you guys pointed out, it does require multiple login in each area and that can be a problem since I’m trying to do a unified login through one entry point (e.g. vBulletin which logs you into each of vBulletin and WP and another script or two I’m using.

    OK, so I’m starting to get ideas but I’m hoping you guys can explain what made you use Hive and the other hack. How do your users handle the login issues? Thanks for the conversation.

    On Virtual Multiblog (VMB) the users handle it by simply logging in for whatever site it is, that they want to modify. The users don’t need to login for all the sites on my domain, just the WP in the sub-directory that they have a login for. That’s why I have not needed to worry about using 1 user’s table. Each blog has its own users, which is ok.

    The reason I selected this VMB method was so that I only have to update 1 copy of WP. I consider it the “VMB WP engine” for all the blogs, they all use the same WP installed code. I’m not sure how WP-Hive does it differently, I went with VMB because it was documented and available more than a year ago when I started expanding my project to multiple sub-sites. I would like to try Hive too, sometime.

    Going to your kentuckyclassroom.org site illustrates the problems I have

    Well, my site is targeted to a very specific group of users and I don’t care about SEO stuff, indexing stuff, or Google stuff, so the problems you point out aren’t problems for me and as far as I know, they haven’t been problems for any of my users over the past 18 months.

    Maybe it is a problem for larger, more open sites, but I’m just failing to see it.

    There is a hack that allows 1 user table. It’s really simple – all you do is install each blog into the same database multiple times, with each time using a different database prefix, e.g. wp1_ for the first, wp2_ for the second, etc.

    That sets up a separate user table for each blog…the only advantage is you have all your blogs in a single database. If there is a hack that allows one user table, there must be more to it than that.

    WordPress MU is screwed up and whomever is leading development is a stubborn mule.

    First of all, WPMU is not screwed up and Donncha is a cool Irish dude. Not only can WPMU be set up a blog farm like WordPress.com but I have also set it up as enterprise solution or CMS for companies and organizations. It is powerful and flexible at the same time IMHO.

    How do your users handle the login issues?

    There is one super admin called the Site Admin and the Site Admin only needs to log in once and be able to visit all blogs in the WPMU installation. Other users’ access to one or more blogs will be based on permission or “invitation” of Site Admin but the users need only to log in once. There’s a dropdown menu link to choose which blog/site you want to post in. Of course, if you are not allowed access in another blog/site, you won’t see that link in the dropdown menu.
    e.g.1 In closed or membership website administration, the Site Admin (super admin) creates the blog and assigns an Administrator/Editor for each OR adds the same Administrator/Editor to two blogs or to all the blogs depending on the requirements. The Administrator/Editor only needs to log in once to be able to go to the blog assigned and other blogs he/she has been given permission or invited to administer. The Site Admin and a blog Administrator/Editor can then invite users – Editors, Authors, Contributors who can post or upload attachments to the site or blog.
    e.g.2 For blog farms, open registration gives new user Administrator privileges IF that’s the way the Site Admin set it up. But the person is limited to administering only his blog.

    Going back to your very first post. If you want to attach domains to WPMU, then set it up in subdomain structure and use the Domain Mapping plugin.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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