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- style="font-weight: bold;">INTRODUCTION
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- style="font-weight: bold;"> among the key features
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-i'm looking for in a cms is 'strong/flexible multi-site support'.
i
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-know there are discussion's of mutlsite functionality scattered
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-throughout both tw.o & bw.o. personally,
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-find it confusing to find it all, let alone figure out what's best
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-practice ...
that said, my hope/intention with this
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-particular wiki page is to:
- gather,
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-summarize & provide examples of the way things *currently* work
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-in bw.obrainstorm ideas, documenting 'issues'
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-& 'wishlists' of 'how to make it better' -- and end
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-up with a functional design proposal to float for development ...i'm
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-generally new to bw.o myself, and |
- style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> really
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-invite any/all interested to participate. if in doing so, if
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-we can keep it organized & readable to boot ... then, woot!
i'm
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-gonna start by dumping *my* ideas/notes here ... please feel free to
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-markup, comment, etc.
and, yes! i realize that all
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-of this may already be easily do-able in bw.o, and i just haven't
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-learned enuf yet. in that case, i'll at least feel more
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-organized :-)
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- style="font-weight: bold;">CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS
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-... bw.o
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- style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"> an
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-out-of-the-box bw.o install is physically laid out as:
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-${main bw.o install}
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |-- util/ |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-smarty/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-adodb/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |-- ...
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |-- themes/
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-admin/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-modules/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-templates/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-styles/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-
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-|
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-|
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-
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-|
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-|-- basic/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-
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-|
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-|-- clean/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-
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-|
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-|-- jill/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-
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-|
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-|-- firebird/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-
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-|
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-|-- ...
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |-- ...
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- style="font-weight: bold;">GENERAL APPROACH
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- style="font-weight: bold;"> prior
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-to moving to bw.o, or any cms project for that matter, when designing
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-my own smarty-based, multiple sites for a single server, i worry about
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-four things:
- physical & logical
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-separation of app src, smarty src & site dataprovide
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-inheritable/overridable configs, from global default to local specificinsulate
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-designs changes from other/coeexistent webappsdo
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-not break access to other app APIs |
- style="font-weight: bold;">
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- style="font-weight: bold;">FUNCTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS:
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- style="font-weight: bold;">
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- style="font-weight: bold;">BEST PRACTICES FROM OTHER
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-PROJECTS ...
just like just about
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-everybody else, i've tried a number of 'other' CMS frameworks.
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- each has some nice features that make life-with-multisites a
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-bit easier.
there are ideas from various projects
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-that might be worth 'adopting'.
the |
- style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">drupal
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-project has what i consider to be a great start at multisite management:
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-are 'created' by simply creating a subdirectory in its sites/ dirdirectories
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-are named as FQDNs; one exception is the 'default' sitea
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-given site's URL is constructed from the subdirectory namesites
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-can be individual/unique domains, and/or subdomainsnon-standard
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-ports can be assigned for a site, prepending the portnum as the deepest
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-subdomainso, for example,
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- style="margin-left: 40px;">sites/default sites/example.com sites/sub.example.com sites/www.domain.com sites/8080.www.domain2.com
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-
would all be valid
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-sites ...
in drupal, each site can have its own
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-site-specific modules and themes that are made available |
- style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;">in
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-addition to those installed in the installation's global
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-'modules' and 'themes' directories, e.g.:
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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-${main drupal install}
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |-- themes/
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-(global)
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |-- modules/
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- (global)
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
- style="font-family: monospace;">-- sites/
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |--
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-default/
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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- |-- |
- style="font-family: monospace;">themes/
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- (site-specific)
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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- |-- modules |
- style="font-family: monospace;">/
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- (site-specific)
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |
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-|-- www.domain.com |
- style="font-family: monospace;">/
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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- |-- |
- style="font-family: monospace;">themes/
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- (site-specific)
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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- |-- modules |
- style="font-family: monospace;">/ |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- (site-specific)
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- | |
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-
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-| |-- ...
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- |
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- |-- ...
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- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- style="font-weight: bold;">SEPARATION/OVERRIDE OF UTILs
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-& SITEs
in general, i'm a big
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-believer in keeping separate:
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-application's sourcedata & configuration
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-files used by the applicationthird-party
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-applications' srcmy primary rationale is to
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-ensure that:
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-& 3rd party) upgrades never 'come near' -- & possibly
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-overwrite! -- my valuable data/config files. i consider data
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-files IN the app's src tree to be 'near'.3rd party
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-applications can be located elsewhere -- either to share sinlge
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-instances amongst other apps, and/or to make available different
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-versions of a given app.core & 3rd party
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-applications can be -- with necessary caveats & cautions -- be
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-asynchronously upgradedof course, i think
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-bundling a default/global set of apps/config/data into a core app's
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-distro is a 'good thing' -- as long as those default
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-locations/assignments can be overridden on a per-site basis.
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- style="font-weight: bold;">A FRIENDLIER bw.o MULTI-SITE
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-LAYOUT
taking
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-the drupal layout in conjunction with the keep-it-separate approach,
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-consider a possible
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-bw.o layout of:
${main bw.o install} | |-- util/ | | | |-- smarty/ | |-- adodb/ | |-- ... | |-- themes/ | |-- admin/ | |-- modules/ | |-- templates/ | |-- styles/ | |-- sites/ | |-- default/ | | |-- settings.php | | |-- modules/ | | |-- themes/ | | |-- styles/ | | |-- admin/ | | | |-- "examples.com"/ | | |-- settings.php | | |-- modules/ | | |-- themes/ | | |-- styles/ | | |-- admin/ | | |-- www.domain.com/ (symlink to ${main my_sites location}/www.domain.com) | | |-- settings.php | | |-- modules/ | | |-- themes/ | | |-- styles/ | | |-- admin/ | | |-- ... ${main my_sites location} | |-- www.domain.com/ |-- settings.php |-- modules/ |-- themes/ |-- styles/ |-- admin/ |-- cache/ |-- configs/ |-- include/ |-- locale/ |-- templates/ |-- templates_c/ ${main smarty install location} | |-- smarty v2.5.x/ |-- smarty v2.6.x/ |-- ... ${main adodb install location} | |-- adodb v2.80/ |-- adodb v2.70/ |-- ...
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> where each site's
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-"settings.php" can specify, e.g.:
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- style="font-family: monospace;">path to a specific version
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-of adodb |
- style="font-family: monospace;">path to a specific version
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-of smarty libs |
- style="font-family: monospace;">specific smarty class configs |
- style="font-family: monospace;">custom
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-delimiterslocations for templates_c &
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-other smarty-specific dirsetc etc |
- style="font-family: monospace;">of course, in the absence of
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-any override directive, values would fall back to bw.o global/default
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-values.
ultimately, this approach scales to src,
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-data, cache & compiled templates, and site files storable in
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-any network-mountable location; think, e.g.:
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- style="font-family: monospace;">compiled templates in a RAM
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-DISK |
- style="font-family: monospace;">individual site dirs on
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-indiv front-end boxes |
- style="font-family: monospace;">shared drupal &
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-smarty installs on a back-end box |
- style="font-family: monospace;">etc |
- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-weight: bold;">DATABASE ISSUES w/ MULTISITES
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- style="font-family: monospace;">multisites in multiple
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-databases |
- style="font-family: monospace;">multisites in single
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-database, shared tables |
- style="font-family: monospace;">sharing some tables ... e.g.: |
- style="font-family: monospace;">consolidated
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-single sign-on 'users/groups' |
- style="font-family: monospace;">per-site-unique
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-themes, modules & contentetcetc |
- style="font-family: monospace;">
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- style="font-weight: bold;"> |
- style="font-weight: bold;">MULTISITE ADMINISTRATION
what's
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-a admin GUI for all this look like? is one evern necessary, or
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-should it be left to manual admin?
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- style="font-family: mon;"> PER-SITE
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-PAGE & 'other node' OVERRIDES
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- style="font-family: monospace;"> |
- style="font-weight: bold;">
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