VMB may save my life!

Other than that, from the ones I’ve tried, most plugins only write into the database, so it’s a fresh set of options for the plugin on each blog instance — with just the one install of the plugin. You choose blog-by-blog which ones to activate a plugin on.

This is a great series of posts Hackadelic. I am a really big fan of Stephen’s Virtual Multiblog technique, and it is good to see this discussion emerging.

here are my two cents about cloning plugins: From the view point of a multiblog, cloning plugins (= duplicating code) is exactly what you don’t want to do. IMO two separate WP installations are less of a maintenance nightmare compared to all the plugins you install in addition. So if a plugin doesn’t work in multblog context, I’d rather try to find a replacement that does than cloning it.

Cloning a plugin is actually just a workaround for when the plugin writes to a file in its own directory. It won’t resolve a situation when a plugin writes to a file that’s independent of the plugin installation directory. .htaccess is such a file.

I can’t tell you any wisdom about how to determine if a plugin writes to .htaccess or not. The plugin documentation should make such a statement. If not, well… improvise.

Fortunately, almost no plugin writes to .htaccess, with one big exception: Caching plugins. They all do, AFAIK.

If you really need a caching plugin, you’re probably better off with WPMU. (On the other hand, you need a caching plugin because your server is too slow for the traffic you get. But then, if you get that much traffic, you can probably afford a better server, or a better hosting plan with more band width.)

Thanks. Just one step closer to implementing it. Cloning plugins shouldn’t be a problem: that is something you’d already have to do when driving several blogs or a blog farm.

Two questions remain at this point:
1. How can I determine which plugin’s will have an impact on .htaccess?
2. Does cloning the plugins -and installing them off course- solve the .htaccess problem?

Cheers,

Friso.

mine all work with VMB. Apart from those mentioned in the post, I can’t think of any other plugins that don’t work with it (though I know there must be others which store data in files, like MyCSS).

Anyway, it’s not usually a problem that the plugin won’t work (except for those who modify .htaccess), but that it won’t work in more than one blog simultaneously. A quick solution is to clone the plugin (by making a copy of its directory), and use one copy in blog1, and the other in blog2.

BTW, that’s the way to go if you want to use the “same” theme in two blogs in the farm, but have to tweak it differently in each.

Thanks for the Sliding Notes update. Just what I was looking for!

Apart from MyCSS, what kind of plugins are expected to conflict with VMB? I’m thinking of using VMB and your plugin.

Friso.