How do you set this up?

Easy-peasy – just install multisite.

Sure, there’s a few little extras, but that’s the bulk of the work. You can choose to change your main site into a network, or you can install multisite off in a subfolder or subdomain so it’s separate from your main site, and pick the subfolder install for ease of use and so it looks like just pages off the main install. Your visitors will not really notice a difference, especially if the main site in the network has a theme that matches your original single site. With it separate, you can also let some clients in the whole install without letting them in to your main (separated) site. Access to sub sites can be controlled on a per user basis (this is built in to multisite remember).

So now you have multisite set up – let’s say on a subdomain. Just install all the themes you want to demo. I usually do it in bulk using FTP, then I go network enable all the themes.

Now, create your sub sites. I give each site the name of the theme – that makes it easy to remember and almost painfully obvious. WordPress.com even does the same thing for its theme demos. (click the “See it in action” button on any theme there.)

Visit the admin area of each site, activate the required theme, import the demo content, drag some widgets around, do some menus – whatever you like. The good part is here you can have generic text for all or use special demo text on each site, listing the theme’s features.

For navigating between the sub sites, you can use Diamond multisite widgets and use the blog listing widget on every site to go back and forth between them. Or use custom links on your custom menu and type in each blog link.

But hey – that also sounds like work. You could set up one demo site and assuming you want to use most of the same content, use a plugin like the Replicator to make a copy of that template site every time you create a new site. Our Network Home pages ebook also has a section on how to include a site listing that updates itself.

Another use-case for this same setup is if you are developing several themes at once. Why use separate installs? Slap up multisite somewhere, close off registration – even lock it down via privacy plugins and work away in happiness. The admin bar makes it super easy to switch between sub sites.

So – who is going to try this first?

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: client, customers, demo, paid, premium, shop, Themes, white label

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You can change the registration settings under Network Admin -> Settings. For members of the public, direct to them to yourdomain.com/wp-signup.php.

Yes, this gives you a signup page almost exactly like the one at WordPress.com. Any attempts to visit the single WP registration link will be redirected to this signup link on the main site.

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: registration, signup

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function ra_switch_to_twentyten() {
	global $wpdb;

	$last_id = get_site_option( 'ra_twentyten', 1 );
	if( $last_id < 0 )
		return;

	$next_id = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT blog_id FROM $wpdb->blogs WHERE blog_id > %d LIMIT 1", $last_id ) );
	if( !$next_id ) {
		update_site_option( 'ra_twentyten', -1 );
		return;
	}
	switch_to_blog( $next_id );
	if( 'default' == get_option( 'template' ) ) {
			update_option( 'template', 'twentyten' );
			update_option( 'stylesheet', 'twentyten' );
			update_option( 'current_theme', '' );
	}
	restore_current_blog();

	update_site_option( 'ra_twentyten', $next_id );
}
add_action( 'init', 'ra_switch_to_twentyten' );

You need to leave this in the mu-plugins folder long enough for the plugin to cycle through all the blogs in the network. Then the code can be removed. In the above case, every site would eventually be switched to Twenty Ten.

* See What is the mu-plugins folder if you are unfamiliar.

© Ron for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: filters, mu-plugins, Themes

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First, make sure the theme is not enabled network-wide. If you have just uploaded the theme, it will be like this by default. If it is already enabled, you need to visit Network Admin -> Themes. There’s two handy sections to show which themes are enabled and which are not.

Just click the “Network Disable” link if there is one.

To enable the theme for use on just one site, go to Network Admin > Sites. Find the site in question, hover over the name to drop down menus, and click Edit. This will bring you to a page to edit all variables for this blog.

There are tabs to break down the options into sections. Click on the Themes tab and you’ll be presented with a list of all disabled themes installed on the network. This list will also include themes that are enabled for single sub sites. Check the one you’d like to enable for this blog, scroll down, and click the Apply button.

When the admin of this site goes to their Appearance menu, they should now see the new theme as available for activation. Other site admins will not be able to see it in their Appearance menus. You can test this as a super admin by visiting the backend admin area of the site in question.

If a theme is active on any sub site, and the Super Admin network disables the theme, the site using that theme will remain unchanged. In other words, the theme will stay active on the site. It is only when the site owner switches away from that theme to another, that the disabled theme will be removed from the Appearance menu.

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One of the tough job in running a large network of sites with multisite is controlling spam on the sub sites. Add that to users who come and go, abandoning their blogs with open settings, and very quickly your database(s) start filling up with spam and more spam. It’s like a spamfest in there.

I won’t get too deep in cleanup or management of spam comments in this post, but what I will cover is how to close comments on all old blogs in one swoop. This is the one thing that will stop the flood so you have time for cleanup.

Drop this code in the mu-plugins folder and it will close the comments on all blogs that haven’t been posted to in over 90 days, on all posts over 90 days old.

<?php
/*
close comments globally
*/

function ra_switch_comments_off() {
	global $wpdb;

	$last_id = get_site_option( 'ra_comments_off', 1 );
	if( $last_id < 0 )
		return;

	$next_id = $wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT blog_id FROM $wpdb->blogs WHERE blog_id > %d LIMIT 1", $last_id ) );
	if( !$next_id ) {
		update_site_option( 'ra_comments_off', -1 );
		return;
	}
	switch_to_blog( $next_id );
	if( '1' != get_option( 'close_comments_for_old_posts' ) ) {
		$post = $wpdb->get_var( "SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND DATE_ADD(post_date, INTERVAL 8 MONTH) > NOW() LIMIT 1" );
		if( empty( $post ) ) {
			update_option( 'close_comments_for_old_posts', '1' );
			update_option( 'close_comments_days_old', '90' );
		}
	}
	restore_current_blog();

	update_site_option( 'ra_comments_off', $next_id );
}
add_action( 'init', 'ra_switch_comments_off' );

You can leave it there to keep on rocking, or you can remove it. You can even edit the value to change it from 90 days to somethign else.

WARNING: this *WILL* override each site’s individual settings, mostly because we’re tossed it in mu-plugins and we’re accessing each site individually to update the database. Use this only if you really need it.

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Frank at wpengineer has written up a quick mu-plugin if you’re happier with the whole column showing up. Check it out.

View blog ID in wordpress multisite

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Even if you’re not looking up plugins and codex references for clients, customers or users, if you’re a dev these may make your job (or hobby) just a little bit faster & easier.

WPLookup and WPseek both look up functions and their usage, both also have their own extensions for the Firefox search box.

WP Codex searches the codex. One less click.

WordPress Plugins is a handy way to search the plugin repo for that one you were trying to remember. (oops, link now busted, great. Alternate is here.)

Both of those are a *lot* faster than simply bookmarking the search page.

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127.0.0.1 localhost

Look familiar? This is how your computer gets a local, or home, IP address. Typing in that IP will always point back to your local computer.

The way you can use this to your advantage is to point any domain out there back to your computer. There are plenty of posts out there explaining how to set up a local development copy of your site. This is something we also do a lot of. We use the hosts file to specify some (basically fake) domain names so we can set up different install to test a lot of different things. For example, my local machine has an AMD64 processor, so we set up a local domain called amd64.local in my hosts file. At a glance, I know I’m working locally, and I have the benefit of working on something other than just “localhost”.

So far, everything has been pretty straightforward. Here comes the fun part.

You can actually specify a real live domain in the hosts file to point to your local machine.

127.0.0.1 yourdomain.com

on a new line.

The only person this affects is anyone using your computer, and you can quickly change this at any time. Why would you do this? (Here’s the juicy bit). In multisite, to run a development version, it can be really tedious to make changes and fix the database every single time, as the domain is listed in numerous tables.

Mostly, you can set up a copy of your live network on your local machine, not have to change any files (maybe wp-config to get to the local db) and just change the hosts file so you can see your local copy. As if it were live.

This way, you can test an upgrade locally, or new plugins, or extensive changes, before you go breaking things on a live site. You’ll be able to figure out fixes without the added pressure of a site being down.

When you wish to view the live site again, just edit the hosts file again and remove the line you added. Yes, you do have to flip back and forth, but it is a lot less work than the alternative.

In Windows 7, the file is located at C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\ .
On a Mac, the file is in /etc/hosts.

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: development, hosts, testing, wpmu

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“But Andrea,” some of you have said, “My menus for my plugin are in the wrong place, how do I fix it?” Fear not, for I have hunted down a lovely example for you.

Note in the trunk version of the domain mapping plugin (revision 316597) there is support to add that plugin’s menus to the network admin area. Settings is a good spot.

function dm_network_pages() {
 	      add_submenu_page('settings.php', 'Domain Mapping', 'Domain Mapping', 'manage_options', 'dm_admin_page', 'dm_admin_page');
 		      add_submenu_page('settings.php', 'Domains', 'Domains', 'manage_options', 'dm_domains_admin', 'dm_domains_admin');
 		}
 		add_action( 'network_admin_menu', 'dm_network_pages' ); 

The action you’re going to use now and in the future is network_admin_menu. Add to whatever menu area you deem appropriate. What used to be submenu items in Super Admin is mostly a top-level menu item in network admin. Snazzy stuff.

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Delete any extra sites you may have created. Move the content and users to the main blog or wherever you desire.

Remove the lines we added in the wp-config.php file.

Restore the .htaccess file to the default. One the multisite lines are gone from the config file, you can usually restore these by resaving the permalinks.

Drop these global tables in the database:
wp_blogs
wp_blog_versions
wp_registration_log
wp_signups
wp_site
wp_sitemeta

This is an excerpt from the free ebook Create a Network in WordPress.

© andrea for WordPress "Must-Use" Tutorials, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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