ocPortal Tutorial: Advanced techniques for multi-site-networks

Written by Chris Graham, ocProducts

Important note

Please note that each site on a multi-site-network requires it's own licence, and no form of personal support will be given that involves part of a network built with unregistered sites.

The linking of different installations, linked via a forum, into a 'multi-site-network' (an M.S.N.) is supported by this software. This is an important feature for networks of websites which share a common community, but are segmented, for reasons such as:

Division of staff, either on a hierarchical basis or a basis of co-operation by a loose-knit alliance of websites
Strong division of content, perhaps for sub-branding or clarity
A balance between autonomy and co-operation between websites that wish to share a visitor-base

Table of contents

ocPortal Tutorial: Advanced techniques for multi-site-networks

Shared forum and members

Choose this option if you want to run each site' discussion forum from it's own code and URL

All that needs to be done to create an M.S.N. is to install each ocPortal such that they all share a common forum driver and forum database. At it's heart, this is all a M.S.N. is: ocPortal provides special features that allow this to work comfortably, but there is no specific 'M.S.N.' feature or setting in ocPortal, nor does ocPortal need such.

If you are using a third-party forum, unless the forum itself is modified to work from different URLs, the forums interface will not be integrated into each site. However, all ocPortal functions that work through the forum driver may be completely customised.

If you are using the ocPortal forum system (OCF) as your forum, then it is possible to run OCF from each site, without members even knowing (from a feature and visual point of view) that a multi-site-network is in action. All you need to do to achieve this is to set the forum-base-URL (aka the board-prefix) to that of the central ocPortal site, but enable the option shown in the screen-shot (available under site configuration). Note that if you do this, and you decide to move a site you are connecting to the M.S.N. with, then URLs may be broken for things such as photos, avatars and attachments- as these get uploaded locally and are stored on the forum using full URLs.
It is also important to note that OCF M.S.N. sites use local specific-permissions and configuration settings: this is actually a feature, as it provides additional control, but it is important to keep in-mind from a security point of view.
OCF may be administered from an M.S.N. site, although some very minor restrictions are put in place, such as prevention of editing rank and emoticon images.

Comment forums

ocPortal allows configuration of what forums are used to store portal-generated comments, and support tickets (enterprise-version only). On an M.S.N. it is important to declare a different forum for each site on the network, in order to prevent conflict.

Themes

ocPortal supports a sophisticated theme detection system, whereby ocPortal themes can be automatically detected:

from the forum-theme-name-to-ocPortal-theme mapping of the member chosen forum-themes, if the logged in member has made a choice
from the forum-theme-name-to-ocPortal-theme mapping of the forum-theme titled after the name of your website name

Configuring the network link URL to point to the central network site

This system is complicated to understand and configure, and is optional, but it is useful for some websites. If you do not wish to use this system, simply manually select which themes to use for each zone, by editing the zone.

Basically, ocPortal has a file, themes/map.ini, that contains entries that link forum-theme-codes to ocPortal-theme-codes. Note that the forum-theme-code is not the same as the forum-theme-title: the relationship between these vary between forums, but most forums define both a humanely readable title and a code-name.

The netlink system

The netlink block

Editing the netlink definition file

The netlink is a simple, but important, feature of multi-site-networks. It provides the navigation aid to move between sites on the network, via a simple drop-down list placed into your menus via the 'side_network' block.
The netlink system can be configured so that all sites on the network point to a shared netlink definition file, just by setting a URL to the netlink of one of the network sites (such as the central site [if using OCF, the site that 'owns' the forum install]).

News

You may share news by placing it on the central network site, and using the RSS blocks (set to use the central sites feed) to link to it on the other network sites.

Banners

To share banners across your network, simply add all banners to the central site, and place the URL to the central site banner.php as the only banner in the banner rotation for all the other M.S.N. sites. You may add additional banners to M.S.N. sites if you want to mix central banners with individual rotations.

The staff system

Configuring the staff system

Managing staff

As permissions are set separately on each M.S.N. site (except for forum access permissions), is is possible to assign different staff access to key functions on different sites by user-group. However, assigning staff is more than a permissive issue, it is also a presentation issue: for the staff page to work, there needs to be some way for ocPortal to actually list staff other than merely by user-group permission. This is done via the 'staff filter' feature, available under security/group configuration.
The staff filter works by storing 'staff on' lists under all member profiles that would be staff if the filter was off. These are comma-separated lists of site-names the member is staff-on, and are stored as a hidden ocPortal custom profile field.

Concepts

M.S.N.: A multi-site-network: a network of ocPortal sites that share a member community. ocPortal provides special features that are designed for such a situation
Central site: Every M.S.N. should have a central site which hosts the community and the netlink system; it often makes sense to also structure things so this site is seen to be the central site in the network, but this is optional
netlink: The site-jump system intended for multi-site-networks