WordPress MU

Hi,

I _was_ trying to join Joomla and WPMU together to realize a idea I had for a site. But after searching, trying, thinking and changing stuff - I dont want to join them. I want to make it purely in WPMU.

To get together what I need - I have to change the home.php (or some other theme) to fit my needs from a frontpage. And as far as I've seen on other sites - I have to create the wheel.

I dont know how to code, but I decided to learn about a week ago (PHP and MySQL). Not for the purpose of knowing enough to code what I need, but for understanding how things can be done - to then teach me that.

So for the first problem I've got.
The home.php file. Is it so that no matter what theme I choose, I have to have a home.php in that theme folder - and that choosen theme is then the "frontpage of WPMU? And the index.php in that theme folder is then the default theme for new blogs?

This is the first thing I've got on my list: Make the frontpage home.php

And what I'm wondering is; Can I choose a set of articles to be the 4 first articles of the main site - until i decide to change one of them or more? Is it a ID field set in the database table for me to identify an exact post from one of my blogs?

And categories - is it normal to make the categories for people and have them follow your scheme (this would be good for having for instance a "sport corner" with only sport blogs etc on the frontpage) - or is it a good way to fix this anyhow?

http://codex.wordpress.org - will have a ton of answers because the thems and the way they work are not really MU-specfic.

You do not need to have home.php file in the theme folder for the main blog. You *can* but you don't have to. it's only if you want a non-blog type main landing page.

The default theme for new blogs is what's in the theme folder names "default". The easiest way to change it is to place another theme's files in there, and then new blogs will look like that theme.

Seriously, the main blog works just like a WP blog. You really need to study how it works. (see link to codex above)

Categories on the sub-blogs are independant of the main blog and each other's blogs.

I'm sorry, what do you mean by a "non-blog type main landing page?"

My goal is to make a frontpage (a magazinelike news frontpage) to show of the articles of the users who have blogs. And to have some controll over what is shown.

Can one do this? I'm just hoping for a few pointers in the right direction here. I've been searching the whole wide web for a week trying different solutions.

I can make the frontpage I want in Joomla. In fact, I have. http://www.blogzine.no/site - but i cant make it in WPMU without modifying it alot (and I'm not quite sure in which end to start first)

"non-blog type main landing page?" = one that is not blog entries from the main blog, but other info.

If you do not want your main blog entries on the main page, then go with the home.php format. You can put whatever php you want in it. Did you check out the codex? I didn't have time earlier to leave the specific page you need to read - http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_a_Static_Front_Page

"My goal is to make a frontpage (a magazinelike news frontpage) to show of the articles of the users who have blogs."

Look for "most recent posts" or "sitewide posts" here in the forums. There's a couple different plugins and ways to do it with a sitewide feed.

This sort of thing is not built in MU. You have to hook in whatever plugins or code you want. It can certainly be done though, but it is nowhere near the same process as in Joomla or any other CMS. You actually have to cobble it together yourself.

Here's an example: http://homeschooljournal.net (although I did NOT make use of home.php)