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Is multi-site the right way to go?

  • @mrsminkie

    Participant

    9 years, 2 months ago

    Hi,

    I currently have a site developed using a BuddyPress specific theme, and it looks as though that element is going to become a part of a larger website – imagine it like a blog with a community section.

    The BuddyPress theme that I’m using is no good for normal website pages and customising templates has caused me enough problems already – I need to be able to use a different theme for the other pages.

    I considered multiple themes plugin, but I’d need to disable one theme to edit the other and it seems messy.

    I looked into multi-site, but I find conflicting information everywhere I look and I’m going round in circles.

    The community generates content (custom post type submitted from their profile) which I want to be able to use on the ‘main’ website – I don’t want any activity or other data on the main site. I also would prefer one login, although different users need to be put on different paths i.e. the community users get directed to their profile on login/registration; other site users need to remain on the page they were on or the ‘main’ site – I think I can handle that with a sidebar login widget.

    Should I use multisite? If so, I would prefer to use subfolder vs subdomain.

    Other options are separate installs, and hacking the code so that user tables are shared. I’ve also found BuddyPress Multi-blog (which doesn’t seem right because I want the community element contained apart from the CPT content) and installing BP on a secondary blog: https://codex.buddypress.org/legacy/getting-started/install-buddypress-on-a-secondary-blog/

    The latter seems the way to go, but then WP advice re using multi-site puts me off. Also, the community site uses a lot of plugins so I’m worried about compatibility using MS.

    Many thanks in advance if anyone can release me from my turmoil!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • @henrywright

    Moderator

    9 years, 2 months ago

    If I understand your requirements right, I wouldn’t use multisite for this. I also wouldn’t use separate installs.

    Considering you just need a main site area and a BuddyPress area, I would aim to keep things as simple as possible and address this problem with a custom theme. You can add a /your-theme/buddypress/ folder which contains all of your BuddyPress templates. Then it’s just a case of styling both the main area and your BuddyPress pages to look consistent.

    @mrsminkie

    Participant

    9 years, 2 months ago

    I understand what you’re saying about keeping things simple but unfortunately, the BuddyPress theme is very much orientated towards being a social network and isn’t suitable for standard pages, nor is it very easy to create custom templates for – I have already created quite a few to handle custom post types.

    Additionally, the main menu of the BuddyPress theme is an extension of the admin bar, and it doesn’t support a dropdown menu. I could only add choices to the profile dropdown (with profile, photos, friends etc.) which is far from ideal.

    @mrsminkie

    Participant

    9 years, 2 months ago

    Also, this post tends to tell me that this is what I need: https://codex.buddypress.org/legacy/getting-started/install-buddypress-on-a-secondary-blog/

    Whereas WordPress says that multi-site is very separated and not for shared users. There is a lot of conflicting information out there.

    @henrywright

    Moderator

    9 years, 2 months ago

    Your theme not being suitable for standard pages isn’t reason enough to use multisite. It might solve your problem but it is kind of like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Have a read of this article, it will give you some things to think about before you go down the multisite path.

    @mrsminkie

    Participant

    9 years, 2 months ago

    Hi Henry,

    I’ve read that post a few days ago.

    My other reasons for wanting to use multi-site was for the shared userbase and to be able to easily share content across the network (both ways).

    How else would I achieve this? The plugins that I’ve found are for multi-site…

    @henrywright

    Moderator

    9 years, 2 months ago

    Do you mean BuddyPress users accessing the main WP site? BuddyPress users and WordPress users are the same, perhaps with different roles and capabilities but they all live in the users table. So two-way access shouldn’t be a problem.

    If you feel multisite is the way to go, then I’d suggest you set up a test install first to try it out. Creating a network will add lots of new tables to your install and rolling back won’t be easy.

    @mrsminkie

    Participant

    9 years, 2 months ago

    It sounds as though I’d be making the site much more cumbersome than it needs to be, and it already has a lot of plugins for functionality.

    I will test the multi-site with secondary BuddyPress blog one day, but for now, I’ve decided to just try and work within the theme as best I can.

    I do think that multi-site, although perhaps overkill, is what I needed to be able to keep my userbase constant and able to log into either site (area), while allowing content to be shared across the network.

    Thanks for your advice!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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