WordPress MU

I'm a longtime Wordpress user but new to MU. I have a client that's going to have about 10-20 franchisee sites under her main site and this seems well-suited to MU but I have a question:

Can I set up a boilerplate blog containing a few preconfigured pages, categories, and plugins and clone that blog when I need to create a new site for a new franchisee? I've been searching the plugins and haven't found an answer yet.

Specifics greatly appreciated!

When you say 10-20 franchisee sites, do you mean 10-20 "blogs" or 10-20 different mu sites that allow others to create blogs?

If you are talking about 10-20 blogs, then I would recommend sticking with individual installs of regular wordpress.

Steve

Agreed.

Easiest method to do all that is to create the content that you want within a single blog, then export it out as a *.xml file, and reimport it whenever and whereever you want it. No plugin. No coding. No mess.

I mean one main site (the top level, administrator's blog) and then 10-20 blogs, one per each physical store that the franchisee can edit themselves. All blogs will use the franchisor's theme and the franchisor will have admin ability over each one. Does that make sense?

The fact that the franchisor wants to be able to get into the backend of franchisee sites from a central location (to stay on top of regulatory issues for her industry in case the store owner posts something questionable) is the reason I was thinking MU, not regular WP.

>>theapparatus -

Is there a way for me to configure a set of plugins in one blog and export/transfer/copy them to a new blog?

Depends on the plugins actually. If you install them within the mu-plugins directory, then they're activated for every blog in the install. Some required additional setup although it's pretty much on a case by case basis.

Oh good, that sounds perfect.

Here is what I would do if it were me:

1. Use regular WP
2. Download the WP code and make any changes in that code you want to make. For example, WP already creates a page and post with sample content when installed. It also creates a default category and default blogroll with sample links. You could find the file that does this...I think it's something like upgradeschema.php, but just search for it and make any changes in that file you want to the default page/post/category/blogroll...you could also add new pages/posts/categories and even blogrolls there to be created upon installing the blog. (Of course, you could do this in mu as well)
3. Upload the theme you want to start with, delete all others, and name yours default. Make any changes to the theme you want.
4. Upload any plugins you want to use.

Then use this wordpress code as your code for creating all new blogs...simply copy past the code (of course, with different name) and open the config.php file in each new instance and change the table prefix...you can even use the same database. When you go through the install, you will set yourself (franchiser) as the default admin and create an additional admin account for the user. While you are there, activate the plugins and you are ready to go.

I used to do this with hundreds of individual WP installs before I started using MU and I could create a hundred blogs in about 30 minutes...the only reason I switched to mu is because I do create hundreds of blogs on an ongoing basis and it's just easier with Mu...if I were doing 10/20/30... I would still use regular WP.

However, having said this, you can certainly do what you are wanting to do with Mu. It's just a matter of getting familiar with the Mu interface. As far as having a central login to the backend of all blogs, there really isn't much difference between logging into 20 individual WP blogs vs getting to the backend of 20 blogs through Mu. In Mu you login once, but to get to the backend of an individual blog, you still need to go to "site admin/blogs find the blog and click on the "backend" link...you repeat the process to get to the backend of the other blogs.

Okay...I've typed way too much...hope this helps...

Steve

Thanks Steve, this is very helpful! I need to be able to pull a quote together today, and I don't think it matters much whether I use MU or not - just needed to make sure that it was all doable, and it sounds like it is.

Debbie

One other thing I just thought of as I'm working on a site map... I'll need to have a password-protected area on the main/admin blog for franchisees only, is this pretty easy to do?