Multi-site-networks & subsites and subcommunities

Need advise based on my requirements - Tutorial give option but dont summerise as to which one with complete steps for specific scenario

Good day,

My very first topic if I may add, and have to say that I am very grateful for the Composr solution.

Advise please...

I need to roll out composr over a multi-site-network or could it be that my requirements are more suited for the Subsites-and-subcommunities solution.

I wish to have multiple sites but must share some common features. Example : Lets say I have 5 sites but I need to place an ad or one of the members wish to place an ad that must be visible on all 5 sites, each site however has it's own user base or lets say that site 1 cannot see the members from site 2. Also, what if a members wants to be part of both sites.

Closing statement : Community-1 and Community-2

Some composr feature such as Forum, Contacts will be community specific and others features for example my Subscription Groups for paid services needs to run across all communities.

Also from a technical perspective. The idea of a single system with deployed intances that feeds from it..

Will msn or subsites and subcommunities be the solution. 

If I missed something in the composr online docs, please forgive me.

Kind Regards
Chris



 

Hi,

If you use zones, then it's all actually one site under-the-hood, even if it works across multiple domains. The member directory, usergroups, etc, would be totally the same across all 'sites'. A programmer could write some custom code to somehow hide members in the member directory that have not been active on a particular site.

If you use Composr multi-site networks, one site is a central site and holds the members and usergroups. So again, they are not in any way segregated. A programmer could also write some special hiding code too though.

If you really need users to be segregated but also shared somehow then there's LDAP, but that requires a lot of expertise and very likely a programmer to rewrite some of the code the way you need it. You'd make each site separately, but configure it to be able to use an LDAP server for user logins. There's no mechanism to register new users onto an LDAP server, so that would need to be custom implemented. This way members can have the same username on multiple sites, but only if they sign into them, because all the members would be managed on a central LDAP server.

Banners can be shared across sites because each site's banner rotation can be included in that of another site by wrapping the rotation into a banner itself.

You need to think very seriously about budgeting. Assuming you want things done to a professional level, most sites nowadays would be 5 figures if you hire professionals. If you are making many sites, that is going to multiply up, and then there's the cost and complexity with the custom integrations you're looking for. If you plan to do it yourself, you're going to need to invest at least months full time in learning web programming (PHP, CSS, HTML, etc) and have a talent for it (assuming you don't already have this skillset). There is no out of the box solution that will do everything you want to a professional level, at least not to my knowledge. Rather than imagining that could be possible with your ideal software, consider talking to people who have done it, and find how much realistically it costed, and/or the the investment in personal time that was required to make it happen. I see a lot of people wanting to dive in and make multi site networks, but to be brutally honest it is usually people with no experience or understanding how much things cost for just one site to be done professionally, let alone a complex network of many sites. So really look into costs before diving in too fast with too many ambitions. The programming industry moved to a 'minimum viable product' way of launching things a long time ago now - i.e. start simple, and then get more ambitious once the basics are achieved.

Hi Chris,

Sorry for the late reply and I am very grateful for your prompt response.

My mistake to be honest. I was overwhelmed with what composr free package including all the features can offer one. So, I never really finished my profile to give anyone or you an idea of what my skills sets are.

I've been in IT for over 20 years and exit my career being a system analyst, however, can I agree with you on some of the points though.

I have very limited knowledge of (PHP, CSS, HTML) but can find my way around it and worked with LDAP integration before.

I also did not read through the tutorials to that extend and maybe wanted an easy way out by asking on the forum.

I must say the system is really well designed and very complex, meaning or reading from the materials.

Practical examples will help a great deal. then again having all this for free. One can not complain.

I decided like you said, to take it one step at a time and narrow it down to only having my forums per zone implemented.    

One question though. How do I edit the zone menu lol…I created my zone, group, and virtual root for my forum but stuck a bit with actual editing of the menu within the zone to use the virtual root pointed out by the breadcrumbs.

Have to add that I feel very honored to get the response personally from you. I've read many of your support answers to forum members.

Anyway, Thank you very much….

Regards
Chris

Thanks. I hate suggesting people should lower their ambitions on grand sounding plans, but I think I'd hate it more to see people crash and burn and lose motivation. Starting small and building up usually works a lot better. There's the phrase "aim for the stars and get to the moon", but maybe it's better to get to Mars .

I have… worked with LDAP integration before

The thing about the LDAP integration is it has not been really used enough (to my knowledge). Back when I implemented it I made sure it worked on a particular OpenLDAP network I was managing, and later also a Microsoft Active Directory network, but I think the code needs generalising more and it needs to have support for registrations not just logins.

Practical examples will help a great deal. then again having all this for free. One can not complain.

We have quite a few video tutorials which are more practical than the written ones. A few dozen IIRC. Ideally we'd probably a few hundred, but it's a lot of work.

One question though. How do I edit the zone menu lol…I created my zone, group, and virtual root for my forum but stuck a bit with actual editing of the menu within the zone to use the virtual root pointed out by the breadcrumbs.

Zone menu? That sounds like ocPortal terminology rather than Composr terminology. Did we talk of that somewhere? (If it's in a video tutorial unfortunately that's stuck there though)

But anyway yeah you can have different menus in different zones. The easiest way is to put the menu block on the left panel of the zone, with a unique menu codename. Then edit that menu.

Or perhaps create a theme for each zone