Multiple sites sharing content

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I'm working on setting up multiple instances of C5 for a large organization cms. I have looked at the available marketplace add-ons and none seemed to be able to give the managers of the subordinate sites quite the control they need in a single instance. What I would like is to make available a cache of content (and blocks and page types if possible) the editors of the individual sites can draw from. I can't use a single instance because each sub site will need its own menu system, and I haven't seen a level of content area between global and page. I can live with multiple installs to overcome that, but life would be a lot easier if I could place a file in a manager once instead of (potentially) 75 times. Same goes with propagating new blocks.

Have I missed something? I've skimmed the documentation and done multiple searches and it's like shaking the magic 8 ball .... The answer seems tantalizingly just out of reach. Or perhaps i am refusing to see it.

Can one set up a central file manager like this? If not, any advice?

VR,

yfsneals
 
Gondwana replied on at Permalink Reply
Gondwana
I've wondered about this too. It's possible that judicious use of 'ln' could be used to share a single instance of invariant files, such as (I assume) those within /concrete.

Using such a trick with the file manager could be asking for trouble, since each c5 installation would assume that it has exclusive access to the storage location. Maybe with suitable refreshing...

It could also create confusion when it comes to upgrading, inless done manually and carefully.
mnakalay replied on at Permalink Reply
mnakalay
like Gondwana said, the file manager is made of 2 parts, the files themselves and the database records of it. Sharing the files is one thing that probably could be achieved with some symlinking.

Sharing the DB tables is something else
yfsneals replied on at Permalink Reply
yfsneals
So this is uncharted territory, and it looks like I'm up a creek without a script. Whatever solution I come up with needs to be bulletproof. One idea is to go back to single instance, give each editor a unique header with a custom navbar and provide it through the page type/template system. At that point, Multiple Domains or Domain Mapper might work. Segregating files might be an issue.
Gondwana replied on at Permalink Reply
Gondwana
For 'File Manager' files, you could try using an independent file storage location: seehttp://documentation.concrete5.org/developers/working-with-files-an...

I suspect you may have less problems when trying to use a single installation, because that's closer to how c5 was intended to be used. With judicious use of user permissions and page visibility settings, I think you could get the menus to appear independent. The URLs could still seem a bit unwieldy but, in practice, that shouldn't matter.
yfsneals replied on at Permalink Reply
yfsneals
Promising. Thanks. i'll check it out.
JohntheFish replied on at Permalink Reply
JohntheFish
Have a look at:

http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/domain-mapper...

http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/multiple-domains1...

Both can achieve what you want. Multiple Domains is the more powerful. You will need to create variations of your theme for each domain with differently named navigation areas and other global areas to have sub-global areas specific to each domain.
yfsneals replied on at Permalink Reply
yfsneals
So, to summarize:
--ONE installation of concrete5
--A file location for each subsite, plus one for shared content
--Control the menu system via themes.
--Each subsite should use unique navigation area names and global area names
--Use Multiple Domains to map the URLS to the subsites

It looks like I'll be using packages to install the file locations. Sigh--they never taught javascript and php in journalism school. Do you think I can include everything (theme, file location, blocks) in a single package for each subsite?