The Wonders of WordPress Multisite

Presented at WordCamp Winnipeg 2013

Transcript

1. The Wonders of WordPress Multisite
2. Patrick Johanneson bona fides ➢ Web Coordinator at Brandon University ➢ Assisted with BU's first webserver, 1996(ish) ➢ Working with WordPress since v. 1.5 or so ➢ Doing dev work in WordPress Multisite since v. 3.0
3. What is Multisite? • Multisite allows multiple virtual sites to be run from a single WP installation (Codex Glossary) • Prior to version 3.0, WordPress MultiUser was required for this functionality • With WordPress version 3.0, Multisite functionality was rolled into WP's core
4. Why does BU use Multisite? • BU has several faculties with many departments within them • Each faculty and department has a website • Each website has its own coterie of editors • With WP Multisite, this is easy to set up and maintain
5. How does one set up Multisite? • See the WordPress Codex "Create A Network" page for a full explanation • You need to edit your wp-config.php file... • ...set up your Network in /wp-admin/... • ...and then edit your wp-config.php and .htaccess files again. • Don't panic!
6. wp-config.php define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true ); /* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
7. Tools > Network Setup
8. Network Setup
9. Network Setup complete
10. Users in Multisite • Each site in a Multisite installation can have its own unique users, but all users are added to a site-wide "pool" of users • A user who is an Administrator on Site A can be a Contributor on Site B, a Subscriber on sites C and D, and have no privileges at all on Site E • Also, Multisite adds a new administrative level: Super Admin, who can make network-wide changes
11. Network Users list
12. Add New User -- "classic" vs. Multisite
13. Adding Sites • The Super Admin(s) can add sites
14. Connecting Sites • News and Events – Centralized or distributed? • Parents and grandparents – Breadcrumbs – Contact information
15. News (Centralized) • BU's news lives in the /news/ site, and is maintained by a handful of people • The news articles are categorized by site -- eg, news for the English homepage is in the English category, news for Physics in the Physics category, etc. • Custom code fetches & displays the news for each site in the BU network
16. Music Homepage
17. add_action( 'bu_news_region', 'bu_get_news' ); function bu_get_news() { // Current site $site_name = get_bloginfo( 'name' ); if( 'News' == $site_name ) return; // no point doing anything *in* the News site $cat_id = bu_get_category_from_site( $site_name ); $url = get_bloginfo( 'wpurl' ); // Some site details $news_site = get_blog_details( 'News' ); $original_site = get_current_blog_id(); // so we can come back later // switch to the news site switch_to_blog( $news_details->blog_id ); // get the posts with category matching the site name $args = array( 'category' => $cat_id, 'numberposts' => 4 ); $articles = get_posts( $args );
18. if( is_array( $articles ) && ! empty( $articles ) ) { $article_list = "<h2>$site_name News</h2>"; $article_list .= '<dl>'; foreach ( $articles as $post ) { setup_postdata( $post ); $article_list .= ' <dt> <a href="' . get_permalink() . '">' . get_the_title() . '</a> </dt> <dd> <span class="news-date">' . get_the_date() . '</span> </dd>'; } // end foreach $article_list .= '</dl>'; } // endif switch_to_blog( $original_site ); if( strlen( $article_list ) > 0 ) { echo( $article_list ); } } // end of function
19. Events (Distributed (well, soon)) • BU is moving to tri.be's The Event Calendar, which will allow site editors to maintain their own events • Events may be suggested for promotion by site editors, so that they might appear on the BU Home Page Event listing • Promoted events must be authorized by a site administrator
20. events.php Assumptions The code that follows is the core of the event promotion system. Several checks have been trimmed for brevity: • Checking to ensure we're not in the root site (if we are, bail out with a return; ) • The following must all be true: – tribe_is_event() – event is in the appropriate category in the sub-site – there isn't already a promoted event for the given $id
21. add_action( 'save_post', 'bu_event_promote' ); function bu_event_promote( $id ){ if( ! isset($id) || ! is_numeric($id) ) { return(false); } $from_site = get_bloginfo('name'); $from_site_id = get_current_blog_id(); // setup the required variables BEFORE we switch to the home site $event_title = get_the_title( $id ); $event_url = get_permalink( $id ); $event_start = tribe_get_start_date( $id, false, 'Y-M-d' ); $event_end = tribe_get_end_date( $id, false, 'Y-M-d' ); switch_to_blog( BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE ); $args = array( 'post_status' => 'draft', 'post_content' => "This is a promoted post, from the '$from_site' site.\nPlease do not edit this post; just publish it if appropriate, or ignore it.", 'post_title' => $event_title, 'EventStartDate' => $event_start, 'EventEndDate' => $event_end, ); $new_event_id = tribe_create_event( $args );
22. // Meta info (redirection) $meta = array( '_pprredirect_active' => 1, '_pprredirect_type' => 301, '_pprredirect_rewritelink' => 1, '_pprredirect_url' => $event_url, ); $meta_unique = true; foreach($meta as $key => $value){ add_post_meta($new_event_id, $key, $value, $meta_unique); } switch_to_blog( $from_site_id ); // back from whence you came // once all that's done, add the _bu_promoted_event meta to the original $event // using the new event's $post->ID so it can be removed later, if necessary add_post_meta($id, '_bu_promoted_event', $new_event_id, true); // All done }
23. Site Parents & Breadcrumbs • WordPress Multisite does not support nested sub-sites (ie, /arts cannot contain /arts/english) • /arts and /english are two separate sites • With a bit of plugin magic, though, we can set /arts as the parent site of /english, so that breadcrumbs look like this:
24. Site Parent • Arts is interposed in the breadcrumb via an in-house plugin named Site Parent. Site Parent sets an option in the current site with the ID of the selected "Parent".
25. More Site Parent uses • The Site Parent option is also used by the in-house Contact Info plugin • If the current site has no contact information set, the plugin will look to the site's Site Parent, using switch_to_blog() • If there's no contact info there, the plugin ascends level after level, until it gets to the root site • If the root site's contact info is empty, the plugin displays a default string
26. References • Codex.WordPress.org – Glossary – Before You Create a Network – Create a Network – Function Reference (x1000) – Plugin API pages (filters, hooks, etc) • WordPress.org/support • Tri.be support pages & forums • WordPress.StackExchange.com
27. You've got questions, I've got answers. ...hopefully.
28. fin.