Multiple *sample* sites: different themes, shared content – multisite? other??

Since you are new to WordPress I would suggest that way to go is multiple independent WordPress installations on different sub-domains.
I can’t see multisite offering you much except for simple administrator logins, and bookmarks and remembered passwords will nearly do this for you.

– Use “virtualhost” to configure each URL to its own files. Edit the URLs into your hosts file. Done this way creating a new site is very simple and also quick.

– If you are creating custom templates and since you are probably also customising themes and css, then you should run all sites on child themes, details here:
creating a child theme https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes

– Create as much content as you can on the first site, make this your primary and parent site. When setting up a new site, use the plugin called DUPLICATOR to migrate this parent site to the new one, initially it will have the same theme as the parent, then change and customise its theme.

– If you need new content then create it on the primary site, and copy / paste them into the other sites. Doing database import/export instead will probably make more work as it would clobber theme settings and customisations.

– Install the files for all plugins you are using on all sites, only activate the ones each theme actually uses.

– When you create a new page template again start on the primary and copy it to the other child themes.

– It will save you a lot of duplicate rework if you put a lot of effort into your primary site, get the new feature working just right there before spreading your mistakes to the other trial sites.

Thank you!
When you said ‘since you are new to wordpress…’
Would your answer differ if I were quite knowledgeable (but somehow didn’t know how to approach this)?

I do have a lot of professional experience programming and all the concepts I encounter are familiar, I just don’t know the lay of the land.

I am curious because in this case updating the content and cut-and-pasting across could become a significant headache. Somehow I was under the impression multisite blogs could all use the same content. I have not found a way to do so, however.

I’ll read the Child_Themes section in detail.
Thank you for your help!

In the case of commissioning multisite I would want to see specific WordPress experience before I supported the adventure. Multisite is tricky, and as I understand it offers only limited benefit to you.

Suggest that you research methods of cloning content as you new focus, solving this could well drive your approach overall.

Thank you,
For others who may read this, that was solid advice. I did cram on learning multi site and have it running fine, but in honest reflection that was time wasted. In a case like this the savings offered by multisite are minimal and won’t come close to equaling the time spent. A small number of sites doesn’t demand the combined administration. Cutting and pasting will be fine. This is more where a good text editor like vi, or anything that does nice effortless regex search and replace (or simple dumb search and replace) and a basic knowledge of SQL and scripting language of your choice would seem a more appropriate tool, but even then it would not save much time vs pasting in content via browser (and not safe if you hose your db doing something stupid, as some of us have in the past… I hope just in the past).

Anyhow, so much of programming our web development comes down to picking the right tools. I was making the mistake of misreading the abilities of multisite and not properly thinking through my needs because this is just a small side project. Since I care about it, though, it fills to take up whatever time it can and I need to take a proper methodical approach instead.

I know I went off on somewhat of a tangent but, hey, if I can’t learn from my mistakes massive someone can!