Multiple sites with independent users

Question

I've been going round and round with this so I hope someone can help!

I've setup about 10 websites, all on Wordpress, for friends. At the moment, each of these sites are on separate wordpress installs. What i'd like to do is get to the stage where I have 1 install that can accomodate the 10 sites, but each site can't see the details/users/themes etc. of the other sites.

Here is what i've tried so far:

1. WP-Hive - This appeared to have some potential however it only caters to a single administrator. As i've just done these sites for friends, I generally give them a login to get in and edit the page content/post blogs themselves. So I don't think this will work.

2. Wordpress 3.0.3 Network - I set this up with 2 sites however I had trouble with the domains and redirects as well as the level of access users had to everything (ie. Users can see all of the themes and plugins available, even when they aren't relevant to them).

The last thing i've found to try is this: http://striderweb.com/nerdaphernalia/features/virtual-multiblog/

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong or how I can get this to work?

Answer 1

Option 2 should work, I just wrote http://wp.leau.co/2010/12/24/moving-a-weblog-to-a-wp3-multisite-weblog-system-on-mediatemple/

• themes: you should NOT network activate all themes, only activate them on a specific site via the site settings for a blog
• plugins: disable the setting in the network admin to display plugin etc..

How to enable a theme for a specific site

To network-enable or to not network-enable, that's the question!

1 click on network admin

image http://wp.leau.co/files/2010/12/image_thumb4.png

2 click on themes

image http://wp.leau.co/files/2010/12/image_thumb5.png

3. Add your themes and make sure it says “network Enable” (so do NOT network enable them) (since then they would be available for all sites)

image http://wp.leau.co/files/2010/12/image_thumb6.png

4. click on sites

image http://wp.leau.co/files/2010/12/image_thumb7.png

5 Click on “edit” beneath the site you want to give access to a theme (or a plugin)

image http://wp.leau.co/files/2010/12/image_thumb8.png

6 Click on the tab “Themes” and find the theme you want to activate, then press “enable” beneath that theme.

image http://wp.leau.co/files/2010/12/image_thumb9.png

7 You are done, the theme is now available for that blog.

Answer 2

Just o make sure you get my post above, http://wpmututorials.com/themes/enabling-a-theme-for-just-one-blog/

there's also a plugin to help lock down what plugins are available to each site.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/restrict-multisite-widgets/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/restrict-multisite-plugins/

Really, setting up a network is the way to go. you're setting up your own version of wordpress.com for your buddies.

If you want separate domains, use the domain mapping plugin. No redirects needed. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/ http://ottopress.com/2010/wordpress-3-0-multisite-domain-mapping-tutorial/