How to set up Development Blog (separate installation, in parallel to multisite)

I want a separate development blog installation and change my current installation to multisite subfolders, but without the /blog/, can I do this?

tl;dr version: Not at this time.

Longer answers below.

How can I install a development blog (where I test my programming, hidden from my visitors, on a different data base)

Just install a separate instance of WP.

Which isn’t Multisite at all…

Maybe I messed up, because I put it in the /wp-admin/ dir of my other installation

Yeah, don’t do that. Put it in it’s own folder ?? /secondsite/ or whatever.

Speaking of the /blog slug, it’s being worked on. It’s complicated, to put it mildly (the problem can be summed up as we don’t want to have collisions with posts and sub-sites).

But I most definitely DON’T want to change all my URLs with the /blog/ slug that WordPress ads when you have a multisite in folders. That is death for my SEO efforts.

301 redirects. Won’t hurt your SEO in the slightest.

3. If the /blog/ is never removed, can I use a multisite installation and just ignore my main installation and move my current blog to a new blog, for which I chose the URL I currently have?

Sorry … what now? I don’t understand what that means.

Yeah, don’t do that. Put it in it’s own folder ?? /secondsite/ or whatever.

Ok, I tried again and now it works.

I might have forgotten to change the PATH_CURRENT_SITE after moving it away from the /wp-admin/ folder.

It might also be that I had it password protected using CPanel.

When I try to password protect /secondsite/ now the second site is not found anymore. I get a 404 error from my main site (I see this as it is the theme of my main site). When I remove the password protection, it works again.

Is it possible to password protect the (folder) /secondsite/?
I suspect it might be a .htaccess issue, but I’m not very familiar with this…

Now that I can install more instances of WP in other directories, I guess I can do that instead of using a multi-site with subfolders… I would have like 5 different instances though ??

Speaking of the /blog slug, it’s being worked on. It’s complicated, to put it mildly (the problem can be summed up as we don’t want to have collisions with posts and sub-sites).

Yes, I have read this before… I’m not versed in the WP code, but I’ll give my 5 cents of input.

In my case I want to have a second blog, which will be a French version of my main blog. And then maybe a German, and so on.

So my URLs will be:

mysite.com
mysite.com/fr/
mysite.com/de/

I will not (ever) have a POST with the url /de/ on my main site.
That would not make sense.

I guess the problem, for you guys trying to program this, is that not all people will use it like this. Some might have different people allowed to create a new blog and chose a name and URL for that blog.

So person#1 might want a POST /awesome-stuff/ on the main blog while person#2 wants to start a BLOG called /awesome-stuff/.

One way to handle it might be to just put a check function every time some one adds a post (and chooses the URL) — is there a blog with the same URL already existing? If so, then the user is not allowed to use that URL and has to chose another one.

And when someone wants to add a new blog, a similar check is done, is there already a post (or another blog) with this same URL?

You could also put a explanation text, explaining the problem when a user chooses to create a multi-site blog with sub folders.

This might not be as beautiful solution as to program something advanced using .htaccess.

Would this kind of solution work?
The disadvantage I can see is that it forces the super-admin to use a first-come-first-serve system to the URLs on his site. But I think the Super-admin can control who gets to add a new blog anyway, so it would not be a huge issue.

Probably I underestimate the complexity… But hey, at least I try to contribute.. ??

Thanks for the help! And thanks for a great piece of free software!

Is it possible to password protect the (folder) /secondsite/?

Yes. You could use .htpasswd (see https://weavervsworld.com/docs/other/passprotect.html ) or if you just want to hide the page to anyone but logged in users, I use https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/underconstruction/ ??

One way to handle it might be to just put a check function every time some one adds a post (and chooses the URL) — is there a blog with the same URL already existing? If so, then the user is not allowed to use that URL and has to chose another one.

That has been bandied about, but it becomes expensive to run when you have a lot of blogs (10,000 say) and pages.

Yes. You could use .htpasswd (see https://weavervsworld.com/docs/other/passprotect.html ) or if you just want to hide the page to anyone but logged in users, I use https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/underconstruction/ ??

It didn’t work…

But after using this fix (with a dummy error.html thingie in the “main” .htaccess file), now it does. ??

That has been bandied about, but it becomes expensive to run when you have a lot of blogs (10,000 say) and pages.

I see.

10.000 blogs, that must be like 0,01% of all WordPress users. Like CNN.com or whatever commercial/successful site offering free blogs.

But, I understand you want these “flagship clients” to enjoy good performance.

Maybe the solution is to ask when the user activates the multi-site function, if he expects to be huge. (lol) …I mean to have 10.000 blogs. In this option, he can stick to the current solution with the /blog/ slug. (A huge site like that, I guess can live with an “empty” blog at /blog/ and just 301 redirect it, or whatever.)

And for the “normal users” one could do the check when creating new blogs and posts. This is an action that only happens once per new post, so it is not a huge deal if one has to wait an extra second. It is not like the visitor to the blog has to wait one extra second for each page. I mean it is not a performance decrease on a critical action.

Well, maybe a question at installing multi-site (or updating to a new version of WP) isn’t the best way (from UX perspective). But the idea is to have two different solutions and the site owner can choose. Maybe it should be a line in the wp-config.php, with a default to the second option, to keep the installation process as simple as it is today (for everyone except the huge-site-owners, who would have to get notified somehow and change the line in wp-config.php).

Or perhaps a different package “WP Huge” (.zip download). Lol again. “WP Huge Package”…

Again, just my 5 cents. Good luck in the coding!

Mika, are you part of the core development team, btw?

Thanks for all the help. My problem has been resolved. I leave it open if you want to respond.

10.000 blogs, that must be like 0,01% of all WordPress users. Like CNN.com or whatever commercial/successful site offering free blogs.

Even with 100 blogs, it’s painful. (CNN uses wordpress.com, which is actually using pretty much the same code you and I use, so while it may be a small percentage, it’s an important percentage ?? )

Also remember we’re striving for ‘decisions, not options’ here and users often can’t (or won’t) predict the future with any accuracy. So it’s ‘Greater Good’ situation right now.

I am a core dev (hah, I have commits, I’m allowed to say that, you’ll see my handle on the credits for 3.0 through 3.4). Mostly, I’m a well educated, well read, volunteer, who chips in here in the forums for support wrangling and some plugin refereeing.