WordPress MU

I'm trying to figure out if MU would be a good fit as a CMS for a current project. The site will be pretty large 100+ pages and probably that many posts and more as the site grows.

If I break up the 7 sections of the site (About, Programs, News, etc) into their own blogs, can I create a main navigation with dynamic links to each of the pages contained within each of the blogs (similar to wp_list_pages but for all blogs)?

Not easily, no.

And just a tip: that many pages on even a single WP system is really pushing it. They aren't categories. Other than the About page you mention, the others were more suited to categories.

Hi Andrea,

can you explain why using 100+ pages is 'pushing it'?
I am planning to offer hundreds of pages from previously published guidebooks on my new MU install.

In the books they are Chapters > Paragraphs > txt/pages. Would this not translate beter into pages than into categories/posts? or is there a technical limit making you prefer categories?

I did not see any restrains on http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Lastnode/Wordpress_CMS

Is it not much easier to 'sort' pages (with Pagemash or similar plugin) than 'posts' in rder to mimick a book with chapters?

Thanks for your input,
Cheers, Bike

Because in my experience, having worked on a setup of as single WP blog with hundreds of pages, it performed worse than a busy MU system.

Many people have used WP to mimic a book with chapters and used posts & categories quite successfully.

That is a bit weird isn't it? Why do you think that hundreds of pages would perform worse than hundreds of posts?

The are both generated dynamically, can have their own templates etc.
What is the use of pages if you should do everything with posts for beter performance?

Do you or anybody have any examples of large books published in WP? My fear is the navigational mess that might result, especially when mixing many posts and pages.

If I have to create a page for every post with a redirect to that post in order to get it in the (list_pages) menu, it defeats the purpose of using posts at all?

I know this is turning into a generic WP question, but I skipped my original idea of using separate blogs (on a MU install) per category, because of navigational headaches, but maybe it is not so bad after all?

Welcome your (and others'!) thoughts, thanks in advance,
Cheers, Bike

"Why do you think that hundreds of pages would perform worse than hundreds of posts?"

Because we found in recent version of WP, it added ELEVEN rewrite rules for each page. Eleven.

And they are meant to be static, as in not really related to other pages, like a book would be.

"If I have to create a page for every post with a redirect to that post in order to get it in the (list_pages) menu, it defeats the purpose of using posts at all?"

I don't even know why you would do that in the first place?

Pages :
- about
- contact
- FAQ

Content Categories:
- chapter 1
- chapter 2
- chapter 3

post tile:
- subchapter headings

extra plugins:
- reverse chronology
- paginated entries
...etc

Setup:
- set welcome page as front page, not posts
- change permalink to category/post-title

Also, in WP by default, the pages don't show up in the internal search. Pages don't have an RSS feed. The navigation from "Next" to "previous" only applies to posts not pages. Using posts works *with* WP, not against it. An archive page can be generated dynamically and you won't have to manually make a table of contents.

If you note this blog post:
http://www.lostaddress.org/2008/01/07/writing-a-book-use-wordpress

He does talk about using pages, but in the comments many people (including the famous Lorelle) suggest posts would be better.

Oh, okay now I see you were wanting them in pages to list them in the menu. You can list the blog posts as well, like I said up there in the archives. You can list categories in menus the exact same way you do with pages.

If you *really* wanted to do it in MU, the main blog is the landing site for the book, info etc.. and each blog off that would be a chapter, with posts being sub-chapter sections. you could probably use pages there as chapter overviews.

Navigation to each chapter would be easy here too, as you'd just list the blogs. I'd use a subfolder/subdir install.

I think you're overthinking the idea a little too much as well, maybe being too close to it. :)

Hi Andrea,

many thanks for your input. Damn, that is a lot of rewrites and maybe a block to real (=easy) CMS adaptation.

Yes, I have been thinking a lot lately ;-)
Guess I do not want to repeat practical and logical mistakes, recreating my spaghetti coded current site, only to end up with a heavier SQL version of it.

Will check out the links and think some more. Am currently cycling in Mexico, so the desert air might give me some brainwaves :)

Cheers,
Harry