Thread

Hi, I’ve been running 3 installations of expression engine on 3 different sites and wondered if it was possible to narrow this down to 1 CMS install and 3 sites accessing it?

The problem I have at the moment is that i’m adding news to those sites 3 times in some cases which is a bit time consuming.
Ideally what i’d like to do is have 1 CMS system that allows me to select which of the sites the news should go on. The sites then look back to one database and extract all the info that is relevant to that site.
I’d like to incorporate some kind of check box that when I submit the news i can check which site the news goes on and then submit it once.

Some news that I put on is relevant to 2 and sometimes 3 of the other sites that we have and each time I have to select the site, add the news and submit it. Then select another site, add the same news and submit it. and so on.

Is this possible to do to save messing around with items i add?

Chris

Hi, Chris.

Are these sites on the same server?

What I do is to use BlogDesk (a PC app) that allows me to post to more than one site at a time. It uses MetaWeblogAPI code.

Hi Sue,

The domains are all hosted on a 1and1 business server that I have.

Currently it’s annoying adding the information to all 3 sites but it’s improved from when I used to add the news through dreamweaver which used to take forever.

Ideally i want to have 1 site as the main domain which shows every single piece of news on there relating to all the other sites and then 3 other sites that only shows the news relevant to them. I only want to add the news once as well to save time.

Chris

Have you considered using the magpie plugin to pull items? Or using the MSM?

I have the MSM installed but when I add news I have to select one site, add the news and then do the same with another site, add the news again. Each time I have to select a different site from the sites tab on the CMS.

Is there a way to configure MSM differently so that one news item can be added to 3 sites all at once?

Also, would these suggestions work with product as well? So when I add new products to the site I don’t have to keep selecting different sites from the tab on the CMS system but instead just select a check box to say which brand it’s part of.

The issue lies in that we have a holding company for the business in which 3 brands are part of this holding company. We sponsor motorcycle riders and one rider may be wearing all 3 brands as part of his sponsorship (boots, gloves, helmets etc).
So when I add news on certain riders i’m unable to check all 3 sites for them but instead have to add the news, upload the pictures and links 3 times so that it goes on all 3 sites.

Chris

Why not post everything to one site and then slice-dice and display as-needed on all the sites using the site=” ” parameter: embedding templates from the site which contains the master data into the other sites to display only the desired information? Or use ‘orderby’ (and maybe a custom field) in the target site to achieve the same result?

In other words, rather than focus on the ‘posting’ challenge, why not take advantage of flexible templating and cross-site sharing of data?

Is there a way to configure MSM differently so that one news item can be added to 3 sites all at once?

You can certainly include information from one site into the other sites. My suggestion would be to keep a dedicated weblog for things like that, and include that weblog on all of your sites as needed.

Also, would these suggestions work with product as well?

Yes, the same principle applies.

So when I add news on certain riders i’m unable to check all 3 sites for them but instead have to add the news, upload the pictures and links 3 times so that it goes on all 3 sites.

You might want to reconsider your setup here. Perhaps categories, or tags, would be the way to go? You could then include postings belonging to certain categories on certain sites, Makes sense?