How to set the default template group in index.php

Question

I'm running multiple domains/sites with one EE install without using MSM (I don't need the power or complexity and to save licence fees). I have copied the index.php file to the subsidiary domain and edited the Custom Config Values as per instructions.

$assign_to_config['template_group'] = 'ocoach';
$assign_to_config['template'] = 'index';
$assign_to_config['site_index'] = 'http://www.xyz.co.uk';
$assign_to_config['site_404'] = 'ocoach/404';

I want to have url's like:
domain.co.uk/item/url_title
domain.co.uk/category/category_url_title

I've created a template group called ocoach and templates within in called, index, item, category, 404. I've got seg2cat installed. But I get the 404 page when I use either of the above url's. If I go in and tick the "Make the index template in this group your site's home page?" it all works. But if I want to have multiple domains using different template groups I can't set the default in the EE control panel. I thought that setting it in the index.php file in each domain would override the control panel, but it doesn't seem to make it the default, just the one to use. I've searched around and can't find mention of setting the "default_template_group" as a config variable.

Answer 1

You've probably already done some of this, but I'm providing you my process of doing subsites, under EE2 without Multi-Site Manager (MSM).

In the subsite folder's index.php file, I set the following…

/* -- Multiple Site Manager --  */
$assign_to_config['site_name']  = 'subsite';
$assign_to_config['cp_url'] = 'http://subsite.org/admin.php';
$assign_to_config['site_url'] = 'http://subsite.org';

and then

/* -- CUSTOM CONFIG VALUES --  */
$assign_to_config['template_group'] = 'subsite';
$assign_to_config['template'] = 'index';
$assign_to_config['site_index'] = '';
$assign_to_config['site_404'] = '';
$assign_to_config['global_vars'] = array(
    'subsite_id' => 'subsite',
    'domain' => 'http://subsite.org',
    'site_name' => 'My Subsite',
    'googleSearchToken' => 'token',
    ); // This array must be associative

Then in config.php I change the following

/* -- URI PROTOCOL --  */
$config['uri_protocol'] = "AUTO";

to

$config['uri_protocol'] = "PATH_INFO";

This last switch is a pretty big deal on most of the servers I work on for getting subsites to work properly. I've only worked on our development server without having to switch to 'PATH_INFO' on all our production servers seem to require it.

The other items seem to be more, as you need them. For example, we don't always allow logging in via the sub site, so mostly the cp_url points to the main domain.

$assign_to_config['cp_url'] = 'http://main-domain.org/admin.php';

we always have a few global_vars but many sites have none, etc. But the adjustment in the config.php file, seems to be the key component to make everything work.

Answer 2

This answer is correct if you have an open_basedir restriction on your server setup and you can't set the template_group as the default one. But there is another solution that may work for you and that is in my next answer.

I've now done loads of tests and have come to the conclusion it's not possible to leave out the template_group from the url unless it is using the default template group.

Each template_group has the following templates: index _home _category _single-entry 404

For info the simplified index template code I'm using is:

{if segment_1 == "category" AND segment_2 !=""}{embed="subsite/_category"}
{if:elseif segment_1 !=""}{embed="subsite/_single-entry"}
{if:else}{embed="subsite/_home"}
{/if}

The .htaccess cose is bog standard:

#remove trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.+)/$
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$  /$1 [R=301,L]
# remove index.php
RewriteCond $1 !\.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ [NC] 
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

As soon as you add a segment to the url it looks for a matching template in the default template group. So if you set the template group and template in the subsite index.php like:

$assign_to_config['template_group'] = 'subsite';
$assign_to_config['template'] = 'index';

Then visit subsite.org It will load the index template from the subsite template group, but as soon as you add a segment it looks in the default template group for a template name matching the segment and then loads the main sites template, if there is no template name matching the segment it will load the default template group index template (whilst still displaying the subsite url in the address bar).

I tried adding a template to the default template group (subsite-index) and then changed the index.php to:

$assign_to_config['template_group'] = 'mainsite';
$assign_to_config['template'] = 'subsite-index';

Again, it loads the subsite-index template when the url has no segments but as soon as you add one it loads the mainsites templates.

The correct domain name is always showing in the browser address bar and plain html files can be called/viewed from either domain.

Studying the James Smith URL schematic closer it does seem to confirm my findings. There is no global variable for default_template_group and the database entry in 'exp_template_groups' has a field 'is_site_default' y or n. Then in numerous system folder files a check is done to establish the template_group, an example from core.template.php is below:

// We we are not enforcing strict URLs, so Let's fetch the the name of the default template group
$result = $DB->query("SELECT group_name, group_id FROM exp_template_groups WHERE a is_site_default = 'y' AND site_id = '".$DB->escape_str($PREFS->ini('site_id'))."'");
// No result?  Bail out...
// There's really nothing else to do here. We don't have a valid template group in the URL
// and the admin doesn't have a template group defined as the site default.

Answer 3

This is the answer I'm going for. It works on my server setup which has an open_basedir restriction. It allows you to have very short url's and does not require a template group as segment_1.

This was tested on EE 2.5.5, both Core and Full license versions on a shared server hosting package running cPanel.

You need to define some additional global_vars as suggested by @nonprofit_tech. You need to do this for the index.php file for every subsite.

/* CUSTOM CONFIG VALUES */
$assign_to_config['template_group'] = 'name of default template group';
$assign_to_config['template'] = 'index';
$assign_to_config['site_index'] = '';
$assign_to_config['site_404'] = 'name of subsite template group/404';
$assign_to_config['cp_url'] = '';
$assign_to_config['global_vars'] = array(
'subsite_id' => 'subsite',
'domain' => 'http://www.subsite.org',
'site_name' => 'Subsite',
); 

Then in the index template of the default template group I used this code to conditionally embed the correct template group and template using the {subsite_id}:

{if segment_1 == "category" AND segment_2 !=""}{embed="{subsite_id}/_category"}
{if:elseif segment_1 !=""}{embed="{subsite_id}/_single-entry"}
{if:else}{embed="{subsite_id}/_home"}
{/if}

Then you just create new template groups with the same name as the {subsite_id} variable. I guess you don't have to use embeds, but whatever method you use, stash, snippets etc. use the {subsite_id} to customise the call.