Multi site or remote database access?

@ schulz

This is possible in a WP multisite install. If you merge your sites, let me know, I can give you instructions on how.

@ shazahm1

Thank you for your reply.

Just to clarify, This is possible in a WP multi-site install with each site to continue to appear to be their own sites however a search in for example the regional site would show results from itself and the local site but not the national site? A search in the national site would show results from itself and the local site and the regional site and a search in the local site would show results only from itself?

If so, I could move them together as a WP multi-site/network, however they are virtually empty I could start from scratch if it would be better.

I would like to request instruction on how to configure it to work this way.

@ schulz

If I understand correctly, yes this could work. You would create three top level categories. National, Regional and Local. Add your entries assigning them to the appropriate categories. The on each site you can use the category shortcode option, or perhaps the exclude_category shortcode option to include or exclude the categories that they should or should not display results for.

I suggest setting up a test site to try it out before you delve too far to make sure it work the way you need.

Since you would start from scratch, setup would be easy. Before you install and activate Connections add define( 'CN_MULTISITE_ENABLED', FALSE ); to the wp-confih.php file.

Hope that helps!

Sorry I did not respond sooner, had another project come up and had to put this one aside for a little while.

‘CN_MULTISITE_ENABLED’ set to FALSE, I assume that this forces the child sites to use the same database as the main site in a WP multi-site install?

@ schulz

Yes, that is correct.

Run into a bit of a snag, it seems that the child site can’t find the ‘Connections cMap – Template’ network activated nor individually activated.

I don’t know about the other plug-in-add-ons however this is the first stumbling block.

Also I can’t use top level categories as a means to separate the results as I would have to duplicate all the sub-categories (not going to happen).

Could I use region and city to define the results? And if so, I would like to request that you add a sub-region field to your plug-in. I believe this would be the least disruptive feature request as ‘region’ already is reserved for province/state. Some of our provinces/territories are so large they have regions within them (ex: a business in the GTA area would not be anywhere near to service people in the NWO area).

@ schulz

re: Run into a bit of a snag, it seems that the child site can’t find the ‘Connections cMap – Template’ network activated nor individually activated.

Hmmm… should work just fine. The template should be activated just like the core plugin. The core default template works, yes? If it does, so should cMap because they are loaded the same way.

re: Also I can’t use top level categories as a means to separate the results as I would have to duplicate all the sub-categories (not going to happen).

If the sub-categories are the same for each region you could create two top level categories; one for region, the other for the categories.

Then use the category_in shortcode option.

re: Could I use Region and city to define the results?

Possible, but you would have to be consistent in naming as it is case and spelling sensitive.

re: I would like to request that you add a sub-region field to your plug-in. I believe this would be the least disruptive feature request

That is possible but actually would require quite a bit of work. The db would have to be upgraded to add support for the extra field. And then everything all the way up thru the stack would have to be updated to make it usable. Probably several days worth of work.

I had to switch it to the ‘Default Entry Card’ template, then deactivate and reactivate the cMap template, then it showed up in the template manager.

I think it would be more natural to use the existing region and city fields rather than have people select a ‘region category’ when entering an entry. People would be wondering why they have to select the ‘Province -> Region -> City’ then do it again for the real Province and City fields. I understand spelling, however why would you have it case sensitive?

What might be an idea is have the city field suggest in a drop down what city they are typing in (based on what is already in the database) like how Google does it.

I suggested a sub-region field, rather than creating a province/state field and using the region field for region, that is what I meant by less disruptive (it would be nice to fix it right, however I guess that would be even more work). I would still like that extra field (whatever you want to call it) so I can have ‘Province -> Region -> City’ structure for the site.

Thanks for your help in this configuration.