I worked on a WordPress site for a client which required the creation of microsites. Each microsite collected together all the content about each supplier from all over the site. It had been hacked together using a large amount of plugins, tools and widgets which meant it took about a day to set up a microsite for a new supplier and required a whole heap of knowledge about the system. I will talk about some of the tools I used to bring the setup time down to around 30 minutes with the added benefit of consistency, including custom post types and a great plugin called posts2posts.

1. CREATING MICROSITES
A 1 DAY JOB DOWN TO 30 MINS
STEPH COOK

2. Who am I?
Software Engineer @ Magma Digital Ltd
Graduate from Comp Sci Manchester University
WordPress Core Contributor
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!
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@stephcook22 / +StephCook / stephcook.co.uk

3. THE OLD LISTING

5. 1. Hope a category is already created
2. Create a new page
3. Copy an existing microsite layout and fill in the bits of content we need.
4. Figure out the category id (not easy!)
5. Create a new widget which only appears on that page showing all the posts in that
category using the id.
6. Create a new contact form with the correct details
7. Create the contact form widget which only appears on that page.
8. Add them to the supplier listing with logo, correct title and link to the microsite.
Setting up a Microsite

6. Why this is a bad solution
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Very easy to miss steps
●
you need to repeat data a lot - this can cause mistakes
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means there are a huge amount of categories
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would be difficult to link back to things (e.g. from post to
microsite)
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huge amount of widgets
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each microsite was styled slightly differently since this was done
by hand
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and it took a whole day...

7. Enter Custom Post Types!
Just like a normal post BUT…
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make custom variables invisible
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create your own interface
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allow custom templates
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separated in the admin panel

8. Creating a Custom Post Type
1 <?php
2 add_action( 'init', 'acme_create_post_type' );
3 function acme_create_post_type() {
4 register_post_type( 'acme_microsite',
5 array(
6 'labels' => array(
7 'name' => __( 'Microsites' ),
8 'singular_name' => __( 'Microsite' )
9 ),
10 'public' => true,
11 'has_archive' => true,
12 )
13 );
14 }

9. HOW CUSTOM POST TYPES APPEAR IN THE ADMIN PANEL

10. EDITING A STANDARD CUSTOM POST

11. Customising!
1 <?php
2 add_action('admin_init', 'acme_microsite_meta');
3 function acme_microsite_meta()
4 {
5 add_meta_box(
6 'contact_details',
7 'Contact Details',
8 'acme_add_contact_box_to_microsite',
9 'acme_microsite',
10 'side',
11 'low'
12 );
13 }

12. 1 <?php
2 function acme_add_contact_box_to_microsite($object, $box ) {
3 wp_nonce_field(
4 basename(__FILE__),
5 'acme_microsite_contact_email_nonce'
6 );
7
8 $contact_email = esc_attr(
9 get_post_meta($object->ID, 'contact_email', true)
10 );
11 ?>
12
13 <p>
14 <label>
15 <?php _e('Contact Email (default:info@email.com):');?>
16 </label>
17 <br />
18
19 <input name="contact_email" value="<?php echo $contact_email ?>" />
20 </p>
21 <?php }

13. EDITING A CUSTOM POST WITH META DATA

14. 1 <?php
2 add_action('save_post', 'acme_save_microsite', 10, 2 );
3
4 function acme_save_microsite($post_id)
5 {
6 if (
7 !isset( $_POST['contact_email'] ) ||
8 !wp_verify_nonce(
9 $_POST['acme_microsite_contact_email_nonce'],
10 basename( __FILE__ )
11 )
12 ) {
13 return $post_id;
14 }
15
16 if ( isset( $_POST['post_type'] ) && 'page' == $_POST['post_type'] ) {
17 if ( ! current_user_can( 'edit_page', $post_id ) ) {
18 return $post_id;
19 }
20 } else {
21 if ( ! current_user_can( 'edit_post', $post_id ) ) {
22 return $post_id;
23 }
24 }
25
26 $email = sanitize_email($_POST['contact_email']);
27
28 update_post_meta($post_id, 'contact_email', $email);
29 }

15. Accessing the Meta Data
1 <?php
2 $post_class = get_post_meta( $post_id, 'contact_email', true );

16. POSTS 2 POSTS

17. Creating a Connection
1 <?php
2 function acme_add_connection_types() {
3 p2p_register_connection_type( array(
4 'name' => 'posts_to_microsites',
5 'from' => 'post',
6 'to' => 'acme_microsite'
7 ) );
8 }
9 add_action( 'p2p_init', 'acme_add_connection_types' );

18. POSTS 2 POSTS IN ACTION

19. Displaying Connected Posts
1 <?php
2 // Find connected pages
3 $connected = new WP_Query( array(
4 'connected_type' => 'posts_to_microsites',
5 'connected_items' => get_queried_object(),
6 'nopaging' => true,
7 ) );
8
9 // Display connected pages
10 if ( $connected->have_posts() ) : ?>
11 <h3>Related posts:</h3>
12 <ul>
13 <?php while ( $connected->have_posts() ) : $connected->the_post(); ?>
14 <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
15 <?php endwhile; ?>
16 </ul>
17
18 <?php
19 // Prevent weirdness
20 wp_reset_postdata();
21
22 endif; ?>

20. THE END PRODUCT

21. Thank you!
http://bit.ly/wc_microsites
!
!
@stephcook22 / +StephCook / stephcook.co.uk