Multisite Office Hours Recap (May 19, 2015)

Multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site office hours are held every Tuesday at 20:00 UTC in #core-multisite.

Overall 4.3 Release Objectives

Last week’s objectives:

  • Mockups for the Edit Site / Add New Site improvements. [log] @hugobaeta has started working with this and we had a good conversation today to help fill in some of the blanks and give more to chew on. See the summary below of the issue.
  • Have more flows posted to Make Flow for the networknetwork (versus site, blog) adminadmin (and super admin). [log]
  • Get some decent progress on `WP_Site` and `WP_Network` #31985. [log] – I poked at @johnjamesjacoby‘s patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing. for `WP_Network()` and reduced it down to the bare essentials. We can start building this up and figuring out what pieces belong in `WP_Network_Query()`. Hoping to start work on `WP_Site()` shortly as well.

Summing up the Edit Site / Add Site UIUI User interface/UXUX User experience issue:

We’ve always had two configurations for a network in multisite: subdomain or subdirectory.

Subdirectory is the easiest to handle as the domain will always be the same, inherited from the network. Only the path can change from site to site. Not only is this a UI decision in the Edit Site and Add Site screens, it is how ms-settings.php parses the requested URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org when a subdirectory configuration is used.

In the changes we make to the Edit Site #22383 and Add Site #31240 screens, we’ll still want to account for subdirectory configurations and make it as easy as possible for somebody to choose a path without worrying about scheme or domain.

Subdomain seems similar, but ends up being very different. At first glance, only the domain can change from site to site, with the path always set to “/”. This is the case in the current Add Site screen. In the current Edit Site screen, you can change the full domain and the path to anything you’d like. Super admins have been able to use this to get around the strict UI requirements for subdomain configuration in Add Site. In ms-settings.php, the code cares less. We search the database for a matching domain and path, which effectively allows for arbitrary domains and paths—a good replacement for domain mapping.

In the changes we make to the Edit Site and Add Site screens, we should make this as flexible as possible. The name of the configuration “Subdomain” will be weird, but it should be possible to enter any combination. Ideally we can confirm that this combination works before completing a save.

Thanks to everyone in office hours today! Chime in with any comments, tickets, etc… or join us in #core-multisite. 🙂

#multisite