WordPress MU

Hello to all,
I want to make it short and straight to the point.

Essentially I want to have a Main Blog page and have multiple users only to be able to write blogs, post pics/videos all under one single theme throughout.

Here are my two issues with WPMU
1)
I don't want to allow the users to start redesigning their own blogs.
I just want them to write blogs and posts pics, videos etc.
Now Ive read in other posts that I can set the new users to Authors instead of Admins. Fine, however I would like the registration process to take care of it and not have to do it manually for each new user.
Is there a pluging for that ? I could not find one. I have also checked another post with code function
ds_new_user_meta($blog_id, $user_id) {
add_user_to_blog($blog_id, $user_id, 'author' );
}
add_action( 'wpmu_new_blog', 'ds_new_user_meta', 10, 2 );
But that doesn't seem to work too well for me. Unless I am missing information.

In addition, they don't necessarily need to be just authors, they can still have admin status, but just don't want them to start redesigning too much. Keeping it minimalistic.

2) My second issue is that I can't keep the same theme throughout all the new registrations. Let me explain.
I am using atahualpa theme which I changed the layout a bit.
I want to be able to keep that same layout throughout the new registrations.
So far, I downloaded the plugin new blogs default which allows me to set atahualpa by default, but the problem is that it has to be reconfigured from scratch for the new users. Which defeats point 1) above.

I just want to keep the same theme with my header logo to be available on every new registration.Allowing only users to post blogs and images. Nothing more.

It seems wpmu provides just a little too much flexibility for my needs.
I tried to stick with a single install of Wordpress but unfortunately doesn;t allow for multi users / multi blogs.

Does anyone have a simple solution or similar situation.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks much ludksi

"I just want to keep the same theme with my header logo to be available on every new registration.Allowing only users to post blogs and images. Nothing more."

Then hardcode the edit into your theme. Theme options pages are controlled on a per blog basis, so you may also want to disable that.
hack the theme, and you can still leave new users as admins and they won;t be able to do anything to your theme. no extra plugins or code.

(keep the new blog defaults tho. ;) )

Hi Andrea,
I was hoping you would find my post and reply.
Thank you.

I am seeing the light but am not out of the tunnel yet.

"Then hardcode the edit into your theme. Theme options pages are controlled on a per blog basis, so you may also want to disable that."

Can you give me a little more explanation ?

What exactly is ment by " the edit "? You mean take the modified files and place theme into my theme? If so, can you give me just a little more information on where should I look for these edited files? and place theme in which folder approx?

Lastly how does one disable the options page.

Sorry im still learning alot these last 2 weeks. Its been reading and reading and doing alot of trial and error stuff.

And yes I am keeping new blog defaults.

Thanks again.

"Can you give me a little more explanation ?

What exactly is ment by " the edit "? You mean take the modified files and place theme into my theme? If so, can you give me just a little more information on where should I look for these edited files? and place theme in which folder approx?"

If you use the theme options to change the header, then as you have seen, it only affects your blog. I'm telling you to edit the theme itself so the *default* header is the one you want.

And I was going to give step by step instructions, but they've made this theme extremely difficult to work with, so it's not exactly straightforward, and not a 5 minute fix. But, it's in header.php. (FYI, I am not a fan of this theme, not at all.)

So, make the changes you want to the theme files themselves. It's not a MU-specific issue, it's general theming.

When you are done, you can disable the options page editing the functions.php file. Look for this line:

add_action('admin_menu', 'bfa_ata_add_admin');

Stick two slashes in front of it like this: //
This prevents that line from running. And that line adds the menu.

Great. This definitely gives me more insight.
I agree that theme isn't the easiest to go behind the scenes.

Can you recommend something better for what I want to do. Ive briefly checked out your site wpmu tutorials.

Thanks much again.

A better theme, perhaps? :) Seriously, if you want the same theme for all, and users aren't going to access the options page, this theme is total overkill. To lighten it up (codewise) you'd have to rip out half the code in the theme, so you might as well start with a more lightweight theme to begin with.

It's just 3col with a header - plenty of those around.

This is also what I am trying to do. What theme did you end up using?