Naturally I spammed both accounts. After I spammed the second account in network admin, it appeared as though the user was not spammed. To double check, I visited the user’s BP profile which showed that it had been spammed. Using Firebug I found that the alternating table CSS was overriding the site/user status CSS.

I edited /wp-admin/css/ms.css to tweak the status CSS so it wouldn’t be overridden. Once I had a fix, I checked WordPress trac and found an existing ticket for the same issue. The ticket now has patches to fix the issue. However, those patches did not make it into WP 3.1.1.

With a bit of further research I found that the change was a regression in an attempt to make the CSS global in this patch which has a second minor slip. The patch changed #faa to #faafaa. However #faa is a short form of #ffaaaa not #faafaa. Both the above issues are fixed in Network Admin 3.1 CSS fix (53). Upload it to wp-admin/css/ms.css.

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In certain circumstances – the main one being your blog has been active for more than 30 days – when you try and create a network, you’ll receive a message stating that your blog is too old, and you will not get a choice of format. You’ll be forced to use subdomains. this is because the subfolder format stuffs a /blog/ in the permalinks on the main site only, to prevent URL collisions with subfolder sites that may be named the same as some pages.

What if this doesn’t fit your plans? What if wildcard subdomains are unavailable at your webhost or you’re off in a folder?

You can actually change the format. You just need to do it after you create the network. Follow the usual steps as listed in the Create a Network codex page. Once the setup is complete, open up wp-config.php one more time. Find this line:

define( 'SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL', true );

See where it says true? Change it to false. Now you have subfolders. The only other thing to do is go back to the network setup page and grab the new subfolder-specific rewrite rules.

You will still have /blog/ in your permalinks. I’ll go over how to remove it (and the hazards) in another post.

I also covered this in my free ebook on how to set up multisite.

Please note that if you have an exisiting network with working, usable subdomain sites, you cannot use this method to convert them to subfolders.

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The reason I chose to revisit that particular project was that the discussion of the code base merge between WordPress and WordPress MU resurfaced again. The merge was announced about 4 months ago. About once a month a conversation sparks about the uncertain outcome of the merge. What’s unfortunate about those conversations is that most of the code merge has already been done.

The 3 significant things remaining to be done to merge the two code bases are:

1. Implement a common installation process
2. Implement a common registration process
3. Develop the ability to turn on multi-blogs via option settings

The link below is to an archive containing a slightly modified version of WordPress MU. I added 2 check boxes to the install screen:

If you do not check the “Use the existing WordPress blog as the main blog”, the installer will create a standard WordPress MU 2.8.5-dev install. The install should function the same as WordPress MU 2.8.5-dev from trac.

If you do check the “Use the existing WordPress blog as the main blog”, provide the database details for a standard WordPress 2.8.4 blog. The resulting install should function the same as a standard WordPress MU 2.8.5-dev from trac install. Note that the main blog’s upload directory will remain /wp-content/uploads.

The Terms of Use checkbox is there to remind the person installing that this is a development version. Please practice safe hex by using this on a test site. WordPress Multi Blog (285)

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But, like I said above, sometimes you’re stuck.

// in functions.php

function get_image_bid($url) {
$bid = 1;
if($url) {
$start = strpos($url, '//');
if($start > 0) {
$start += 2;
$end = strpos($url, '/', $start) - $start;
if($end > 0) {
$bid = get_blog_id_from_url(substr($url, $start, $end));
}
}
}
return $bid;
}

// in the image url

<img src=”<?php echo bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?>/scripts/timthumb2.php?src=<?php echo $image_src; ?>&amp;w=<?php echo $width; ?>&amp;h=<?php echo $height; ?>&amp;zc=1&amp;q=100&amp;bid=<?php echo get_image_bid($image_src); ?>”

If it helps someone finish up that project or stops them from banging their head, awesome. It was a one-time thing for me.

Using this a lot? The ever awesome @binarymoon is now working on keeping timthumb updated. He’s released a new beta version you can try.

If you’re theme developer, please consider strongly updating your timthumb usage. It’ll have to work with MU properly at some point.

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2009. | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Most of the programming that I’ve done in the last 20 years has been modifying other people’s code. Recently, I have worked mostly with WPMU but a few years ago I was writing plugins and theme functions for WP. After some thought on the task of merging the WP & WPMU codebases I felt that the easiest route would be to modify WPMU so that it would run on the WP database structure without altering the WP data.

The process that I followed was

• Fresh install of WP 2.7.1
• Wrote the second post in the blog
• Move the WP folder and replaced it with a WPMU 2.7.1 install
• Edited the wp-config to use the WP database
• Worked my magic without modifying any of the WP tables or WPMU core files
• a line in wp-config + 2 plugins = wpmu running on wp install
• buddypress member on wpmu over wp
• Buddypress home on wpmu over wp
• edit apache vhost document root + restart = back to WP from WPMU (to verify that the WP DB remained intact)

I’m fairly sure that quite a few people are interested in knowing specifically what I did. I’m familiar with that feeling. However, having had a day or so to give it some thought, developing a common code base which would run on either a WP or WPMU database would be a nice to add to my list of accomplishments. Those interested in the potential of the common code base could purchase a support subscription at musupport.net. Enough subscriptions would allow Andrea & I to reduce our client load such that I could dedicate more time to a common code base.

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Only two files are affected – wp-includes/class-snoopy.php and version.php.

To upgrade wmpu 2.6.2 to 2.6.3 manually:

Make a backup of /wp-includes/class-snoopy.php

Download:

http://trac.wordpress.org/export/9310/tags/2.6.3/wp-includes/class-snoopy.php

Upload it to your server into /wp-includes/ folder.

Now you only have to change the version of your WPMU.
Edit /wp-includes/version.php and change “2.6.2″ to “2.6.3″.

Thanks to user buzz_lightyear, who is my forum favorite of the day. I’d also like to point out that the file itself has changed very minorly, only 8 diffs. So.. you know… calm down.

Edit: Donncha has released WPMU 2.6.3, which includes this and some minor bug fixes, so you can do just the above if you’re only concerned about the security issue, or you can do a minor upgrade.

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By default, Mu strips out the www on domain names. I’m not going to get into the debate of for or against, because at some point you just may be forced to use it for reasons beyond your immediate control. Whether you like it or not.

In case you somehow missed catching the the change in the address bar, symptoms may include a redirect error when trying to view the main page, even if it installed fine, and a constant page refresh when trying to login. So watch the address bar and see if it’s adding the www.

After a few eye-bleeding hours searching the forums and the forum tags, I finally found it here. (Did you know there’s actually two ways to search? I should probably write a post on that…)

The thread is a year old and the line numbers are slightly off, but most of it still applies. The rewrite rule to strip www is no longer in the htaccess file so don’t bang your head looking for it.

In my case, I did not want to reinstall again because of the setup it was more work. Here’s what I did:

- go into phpmyadmin and search for all instances of your domain name. Edit them to add the www to the domain name.

- Find wpmu-setting.php in your root folder. Comment out lines 10 and 11 like this:

// if( substr( $domain, 0, 4 ) == 'www.' )
//    $domain = substr( $domain, 4 );

Those double-slashes in front of the lines keep that code from being run.

Go test your install, it should be okay. I should also mention that I only tested this on a subfolder install. I have no idea what it does on subdomains.

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2008. | Permalink | 27 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: comment out code, force, hack, htaccess, redirect error, search, subfolder, www

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Through my first experience with WPMU, I have spent many hours searching the forums while trying to determine the best plugins and code hacks to accomplish the goals of the site I am developing. I’ve downloaded dozens of these plugins and have made many several changes to WPMU core files. During this process, I was working with version 1.3.3 and then came a new version, 1.5 RC1, and then yet another, the official 1.5.1 version which integrated the changes that were made to the standard WordPress 2.5.1 backend. As you might imagine, with all these upgrades, and with me including code hacks in between, things can quickly get out of hand and confusing.

The purpose of this post is to remind all new WPMU users, and even veterans, to TRACK YOUR CHANGES. This may seem like a no-brainer, but with as many code hacks as I’ve tried to get things working the way I want, if I wasn’t tracking what I was doing, I would quickly become lost when I needed to upgrade and preserve my changes, or to troubleshoot when something goes wrong.

Tracking my changes couldn’t be simpler. I just keep a simple text document on my local system that I enter the changes into. When it’s time to upgrade or refresh myself on what changes I’ve done, I just open it up and have a look.

I hope this helps make your WPMU experience just a bit easier.

p.s. The WPMU site I’m working on is still in development, but will be open for beta testing soon. Please stay tuned here and also at here for further announcements.

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For this, I am going to assume you’ve already picked another theme you like and tested it to make sure it works and behaves liek expected. Surf on in to your server, however you like. Find the default theme folder in wp-content/themes/. Tip: it’s called “default”. Rename the folder to something like default-old.

Now, find your new theme folder with the theme you like. Rename that folder to “default” (no quotes).

Seriously, that’s it. Withoin the code itself, it is only the folder name that is used in the case of new blog setup and to have a theme to revert to should a previously selected theme be removed.

If you want, you can disable Kubrick (the original default theme) so users cannot select it, by going to Site Admin -> Themes and click the “NO” radio button. Don’t forget to save your changes.

I’d also like to remind you to note that you made this change in your own personal changelog file. This helps by keeping track of any changes you made so you can repeat them in case of an upgrade, a re-install or some tragic unforseen event.

Hey, it can happen and it’s a good habit to get into.

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Basically, this is a light hack which re-words the signup page so users aren’t confused as to what is happening, and sends the activation email to you, the site admin, instead of the new user.

You’ll need to edit two files:
- public_html/wp-signup.php
- wp-includes/wpmu-functions.php

Open up wpmu-functions.php in your favorite text editor. Scroll down until you find the function wpmu_signup_blog_notification. Copy everything from $admin_email to just before the last } and paste it directly underneath.

Edited to add this bit:
$admin_email = get_site_option( “admin_email” );
if( $admin_email == ” )
$admin_email = ‘support@’ . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$from_name = get_site_option( “site_name” ) == ” ? ‘WordPress’ : wp_specialchars( get_site_option( “site_name” ) );
$message_headers = “MIME-Version: 1.0\n” . “From: \”{$from_name}\” \n” . “Content-Type: text/plain; charset=\”" . get_option(‘blog_charset’) . “\”\n”;
$message = sprintf(__(“To activate your blog, please click the following link:\n\n%s\n\nAfter you activate, you will receive *another email* with your login.\n\nAfter you activate, you can visit your blog here:\n\n%s”), $activate_url, “http://{$domain}{$path}”);
// TODO: Don’t hard code activation link.
$subject = sprintf(__(‘Activate %s’), $domain.$path);
wp_mail($user_email, $subject, $message, $message_headers);

(Note: in case of future code edits this may end up looking a little different. So to clarify, it’s the section of this function that sends an email. It helps to read the code you’re tweaking. )

In the first section (the original bit we copied), change the message sent to the user to something like “We’ve recieved your signup request and you’ll get another email with your password.” Remove the $activate_url directly after that. This verifies that we are not sending them the activation link.

Now, in the bit you copied over, we’ll do a little more work. This is the message that will come to you, the site admin, and we have to add more details so we can determine if this is a legit signup. First, we’ll change the message that gets sent to us.

Mine looks like this:

$message = sprintf(__(“Someone at the address %s has signed up for a blog: %s. To activate this for them, please click the following link:\n\n%s\n\nAfter activation, the user will receive *another email* with their login.\n\nYou can visit their blog here:\n\n%s”), $user_email, $title, $activate_url, “http://{$domain}{$path}”);

The %s stands for string, and the value inserted is the first (or next) option listed directly after this message. By comparing this to the original, you can see I added the user’s email and the title of the requested blog. There are four %s in the message and four matching values at the end of it.

On the last line, change the line like this:
wp_mail($user_email, $subject, $message, $message_headers);
to this:
wp_mail($admin_email, $subject, $message, $message_headers);

This will send the message to the admin, not the user.

Another thing to do in this file is moderate the user signups as well. Spammers can still create splogs (and they will) if they can easily signup for just a username.

For ease of use, the function wpmu_signup_user_notification is just underneath the one we’ve been working on. Make the same changes as above.

Save your work.

Now that we have moderated the signups, we need to inform the users we did so. Otherwise, you’ll get dozens of annoyed potential users asking “Where’s my activation key???”

Open up wp-signup and find the function confirm_user_signup (line 292). All we are going to change is the text of the messages. I changed mine to read something like, “But, before you can start using your new username, we must activate it. Check your inbox for the password we will send to you. If you do not get an activation notice within two days, please email support.”

Scroll down a little further to line 362 to the confirm_blog_signup function, and make similar changes to the message there. Save your work.

Make sure you save a copy of the original files somewhere, then you can replace them with your new edited version of the files. Whenever you upgrade, you can overwrite the files with the new version and make these changes again, OR you can use the revision log to make line-by-line upgrades to each file.
wp-signup revision log
wpmu-functions revision log

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