Hi.
I'm fairly new to Umbraco, only spent a few days evaluating version 7.2 for an upcoming project. So far it has met almost all of my demands. I would really appreciate some advice on how to organize my data in order to support the following unsolved scenario:
I will have to support multiple sites that share a common set of content, but each site will only show a subset of it. Which content should be visible where is configured by the editor by adding metadata to the content, i.e checkboxes such as
[x] Show in Site X
[x] Show in site Y
[ ] Show in site Z
A piece of content can be visible at multiple sites at the same time.
In essence all pages that aggregate data, as well as site search, within a site needs to filter out non-relevant content. Workflow is shared, so visibility on each site is, after the item is published, only controlled by the given flags.
I've looked at two strategies:
Copy on save:
Have a "Master content"-tree and create additional content trees for each site by hooking into the Save and publish workflow in the "Master content"-tree" and copy the content to the sites where it should be visible.
I would although assume that this approach would lead to a lot of bookkeeping in order to also copy content that are connected to the published item, such as the relations-API, attached binaries etc.
Virtual sites:
Have a "Master content"-tree for all content and create "virtual" sites which basically just holds a configuration that identifies which site it is. This configuration is used in all templates or functions that aggregate content in order to filter out non-relevant content for that site
The "Virtual site" approach seems like the best option at the moment. It seems similar to the concept Umbreco has of connecting a language setting to multiple domains. Is it possible to use some of the same mechanisms in my case?
Any other suggestions/advice are also welcomed.
Thanks.
samyhrer
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://our.umbraco.com/forum/59863-umbraco-site-architecture-multiple-sites-that-share-content