WordPress MU

Hello!

Here's the request:
Each WPMU blog needs access to a resource list, like links, with 1 or more categories. This resource list needs to be able to be updated in one location, like the admin menu. Using widgets, the blog author will call those "globally accessible" links.

Here's the context:
Librarians create course guides. Each course guide has a list of resources grouped by subject. Sometimes a couple librarians will use parts or all of the different resources.

Here's the rub:
You can't do this with WPMU. Each blog has its own set of links; you can't access them from a different blog. With plain ol' WP I'd have to use pages and pages can't have customizable widgets - only the blog page can. I could create a template file, but that template file could not be customizable by the librarians on the fly.

Any suggestions?

Hmmm, this is an interesting quandry. So you are looking for a globl list of links, but you want the global list to be customizable on a course-by-course basis? Is that right?

Immediately I think wiki page that can be pulled into a WordPress Page on the fly. For example, we use the Wiki Append plugin to build our support documentation, and then pull it into a page on a WordPress blog:

See it here http://umwblogs.org/support/faq

Which is actually be pulled in from this wiki:

http://umwbblogs.org/wiki

But this may add to much complexity. The other way is to have one shared blog where librarians collaboratively updated links and then pull those links into a widget you write. It must be possible given that wordpress has default links in the blogroll, what would that look like? Hmmm, I guess we'd have to look and play with it. Let me know if the wiki append thing makes any sense for this project.

Hey Jim-
Thanks for the response!

I think the wiki idea would add too much complexity. I'm already trying to simplify our setup from two systems to one - so adding the wiki doesn't help that goal.

The problem that I've found is that I need another write panel. So, where I have the "Attributes" panel I could use another one that says "links." Preferably those links are generated from the admin links section, and those links can be dragged and dropped into the write panel. I'm sure a plugin could be written for this - but that is beyond me at this point.

I did seriously look into Flutter and found that it had everything I needed but the global links.

The quest continues...

Not quite global, but the quick solution would be to use switch_to_blog() in the theme and grab the links from the primary blog. Here's some pseudo-code of what I mean:

<div class="my_links">
   <?php switch_to_blog(1); ?>
   <?php wp_list_bookmarks( $args ); ?>
   <?php restore_current_blog(); ?>
</div>

The above solution would allow you to keep track of your list of links from the primary blog and have those links populate on each blog which has that code in the template. You could also wrap that whole thing up in a widget and get it to work the same.