Subnetwork activation

[carlomanf]

This is one of the two major features of this plugin, the other being #1.

A child site, at any time, should be able to break out of its parent network to start its own network.

Furthermore, when a child site does this, it should still be able to access the sharing capability on its parent network exactly the same as before (see #1) as well as being granted a separate sharing capability on its own network.

Grandchildren sites will not be able to access the sharing capability on their grandparent network unless the shared post/page is double-shared with them by their parent site.

[carlomanf]

See stuttter/wp-multi-network#112 for notes.

[carlomanf]

A comment I left on the other plugin:

Another thought. There should maybe be an entry added to the options table for that site, indicating which network the site was previously part of, for reference purposes. Probably not the plugin doing this itself, but at least providing an action hook enabling a developer to do this if they wish.

In this plugin, the site option supernetwork_parent_site will be used to reference the parent site, if the site has moved off its parent network and started its own network.

[carlomanf]

Furthermore, when a child site does this, it should still be able to access the sharing capability on its parent network exactly the same as before (see #1) as well as being granted a separate sharing capability on its own network.

This will require this plugin to be activated on the new network as well, which could be done with the user's consent as part of the process.

[carlomanf]

I like the idea of letting the network owner set a limit to the number of levels 'deep' that the offspring can go. For example, if one network sets a limit of 2, any network that is a direct child can only set a limit of 0 or 1.

[carlomanf]

I like the idea of letting the network owner set a limit to the number of levels 'deep' that the offspring can go. For example, if one network sets a limit of 2, any network that is a direct child can only set a limit of 0 or 1.

With the above permitting, I think that anyone who is an admin of a site should be able to start a new network, even if they are not a super admin. However, for security reasons, it is probably a good idea to deny super admin privileges on the new network to anyone who didn't have them on the old network, even if this applies to the initiating user. This means they will be the admin of the main site, but not a super admin unless they were one already.

[carlomanf]

Some refinement of this idea:

Grandchildren sites will not be able to access the sharing capability on their grandparent network unless the shared post/page is double-shared with them by their parent site.

I don't think this will work, as it could cause content to easily break between generations. Instead, a site should be able to access all shared content from each of its ancestor networks. However, none of its ancestor networks will be able to access its own content. In other words, the sharing should continue along the full length of the ancestry, but only in one direction.

A lot of the other notes on this issue can probably be achieved by copying over the site meta values (network active plugins, super admins etc) from the old network to the new network.

There will also need to be a new capability to create a new network for a given site. It could be called activate_network, and the depth limit could be built-in to it.

[carlomanf]

I would like to keep the first version of this fairly simple, because #11 has been quite complex and time-consuming and will need further refinements. v1.3.0 will focus mainly on the query transformation integrity with minimal tools, with the availability of tools being enhanced in later releases.

Furthermore, when a child site does this, it should still be able to access the sharing capability on its parent network exactly the same as before (see #1) as well as being granted a separate sharing capability on its own network.

Grandchildren sites will not be able to access the sharing capability on their grandparent network unless the shared post/page is double-shared with them by their parent site.

I think this will be too confusing, as it won't be clear which posts are shared on which networks. Instead, the feature should integrate only with consolidated mode.

In this plugin, the site option supernetwork_parent_site will be used to reference the parent site, if the site has moved off its parent network and started its own network.

This will probably not be needed, as core now stores the main site ID in the database, so the core entry can be used and the minimum core version lifted.

[carlomanf]

The foundation for this feature has been added and specific sub-tasks can now be addressed with other tickets such as #21 and #22.