WordPress MU

I've read a great number of the forum posts, successfully installed mu 2.6.5 as a test, successfully updated to the latest 2.7 trunk as part of my test, and I believe I am ready to convert 30+ department and club blogs at my high school to wpmu. (especially after spending nearly 40 hours just updating the same 30+ individual blogs to wp 2.7... I need an easier way to manage all of the blogs).

Here are some questions that remain after reading as many of the relevant posts here:

- I haven't yet figured out how to restrict the log in of a user to a single blog. I don't want student members of a club to be able to edit or post in, say, the English Department web site. I found (in the 2.6.5 version) a way to set a user's primary blog, but I haven't found that UI in the 2.7 trunk. Logged in users with lesser privileges can still see the dashboard of all blogs (which is OK, as long as they can't make changes) Can this be done?

- I have 30+ databases for my existing blogs and hundreds and hundreds of pages of data. I haven't found any recommendations in the forums as to how to convert multiple individual blogs to wpmu. Is there a guide for that somewhere?

- When doing the install, the install guide recommends domain style installation rather than sub-directory style. Why? My tendency is to use sub-directories since that's the way all of the individual blogs have been set up so far, and the fewer changes for my pebcak, ID 10-T users, the better... What is the basis of the domain recommendation?

Thanks

By default each user can only access his/her blog.

What pertains subdomains instead of subdirectories... I think this is a matter of personal preferences, I can name several factors why I like subdomains better:

1. Better for SEO

2. More flexible permalinks - I mean with subdirs you can get a mess: a page domain.com/somename and a blog domain.com/somename

3. It's easier to map domains to individual blogs if you have subdomain structure.

> By default each user can only access his/her blog.

I will be creating all of the blogs and creating all of the user accounts. So...I guess I'm still trying to wrap my head around how to map a user to a particular blog if I'm creating them and they're not creating the blogs themselves... I have yet to find a way to display the users of a particular blog rather than all of the users, and so far, the users I've created in my test site, appear to be members of all of the blogs created.

Well, create your 30 blogs manually, add your 30 users. Then manually assign each user to his/her blog :) WPMU backend allows that.

If I were you, I'd just ask my users to signup at new system themselves :) And then I'd import their stuff into their blogs.

Good suggestion, and worth considering. One consideration is that each of the blogs has anywhere from 10-100 users for that blog. For example, the spanish department blog has 2 faculty, two IT admins, and then over 100 students who post to various parts of the spanish blog.

We're essentially using WP as a CMS. Most of the items in each blog are pages rather than posts, though things like homework assignments and lesson plans logically use posts. Student also post to their writing/homework assignments in the correct categories.

> Then manually assign each user to his/her blog :) WPMU backend allows that.

Where is that UI? I know I must be dense not to be able to find it, but I can't in the 2.7 trunk.

You'll see the users assigned to each blog under Site Admin -> Blogs.

By default, if you;re on the main blog and you add a user ... they are added to the main blog. You have to edit that blog and add the user to it, or (new in 2,.7) go to that blog, and add a user there.

See this post for details:
http://wpmututorials.com/new-features/users-adding-users-in-wpmu-27/

As for subdoamins/subfolders, feel free to keep using the subfolders. Way back in the code, that version was more buggy. It's better now. If you don't care about SEO and that's how it is now, feel free to stick with it.

[edit to remove repost - freaky browser stuff]

If you want to do db to db transfers of content, see here:
http://bavatuesdays.com/importing-a-single-wp-blog-to-a-wpmu-installation/

I got a question... Are these 30 WP blogs hosted on your own servers or elsewhere? Just wondering since it is difficult to put more than 1 WP install on the same server (I know it can be done, but WPMU is the more ideal solution).

"since it is difficult to put more than 1 WP install on the same server "

Uh... not in my experience. maybe on some shared hosting accounts...

> Are these 30 WP blogs hosted on your own servers or elsewhere? Just wondering
> since it is difficult to put more than 1 WP install on the same server (I know it can be
> done, but WPMU is the more ideal solution).

Yes. While a great deal of the wordpress stuff is simply duplicated, I've also made judicious use of php includes in my template files so that all of the blogs use the same css, the same page and post templates, etc. Essentially the only thing that fully differs from one blog to another is the sidebar. I can make a single css change that affects all the blogs on the site--same thing for page and post structures.

Most blogs have unique databases, though I have some departments sharing a database, just changing the table prefix.

The reason I'm eager to move to MU is that upgrading to newer versions of WP takes an inordinate amount of time because I have to copy so many file carefully, making tons of edits, etc.

> new in 2,.7) go to that blog, and add a user there.

Ah, since I did most of my testing on the 2.65 trunk, I hadn't noticed that after updating to 2.7. I will investigate. Thanks!

> http://wpmututorials.com/

HOW did I miss this website! Thanks Andrea! I'll be spending some time over there.

By the way, what's "SEO"? That's a tla I don't recognize... ;-)

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

SEO is one of the catchy tech terms... ;)

Andrea: Maybe I worded it wrong, I meant to say that installing wordpress on the same server multiple times is difficult because it would take a bit of time and most likely would be easier to install WPMU.

"since it is difficult to put more than 1 WP install on the same server "

Maybe the poster is thinking about multiple installs within the same account? There have been some cases where a wp install in a subdirectory will read the wp-config.php of the wp install in the root.

Gotcha xenon. :) I'm moving a bunch of my own stand-alone blogs into one MU install.

Thanks dherren - yes, in your case MU makes a ton of sense.

OK, I've been testing and experimenting for well over a week now. There has got to be an easier, more reliable way of moving WP blogs to MU. I've tried using the "native" export/import, but I lose way too much information. Users don't get moved with their passwords, links get lost, etc. I've tried direct database dumps and imports and end up with any number of non-functional set ups even after carefully editing the sql dumps to correct table pre-fixes.

Am I expecting too much? Is it impossible to simply move multiple blogs and their users still associated with their posts and pages into a MU installation?

The native import/export has a ton of issues, like you discovered.

The safest way really is the db direct import BUT you have to match up the user ID numbers as well. It's slow and careful, but yes it can be done.

(We moved about 80 from one WPMU install into a new one set up differently.)

Must the wpmu blogs be created manually after importing the wp users? I get an infinite loop redirect error prohibiting (wp) imported users from accessing the (wpmu) dashboard.

This issue with user/usermeta tables is the only thing keeping me from finalizing our migration from wp to wpmu. But we have 700+ members, and manually creating all their blogs would be incredibly time consuming. Not to mention they may want a different subdomain than we choose for them.

I discuss my situation of migrating wp to wpmu here in more detail. Thanks for any input!