Expanding sites with MSM

Question

I'm doing a large redesign on an OLD EE1 site. It was built in a way that doesn't make sense to try converting. It is also going to a subdomain flow. Originally I was going to just keep all of the subdomain segments as separate sites since it is operating under the DEV -> QA -> PROD server flow and will be released live in waves. However, I don't want to rely on a third party search engine to crawl the site and return data. I also have needs for the native search in EE.

What is the best way of expanding a site to include new subdomains as they are developed while keeping them from being visible during development? I know I could keep the subdomain/msm site turned off while everything is being worked on and then turn it on when it is ready to go live, but this doesn't allow for the requested flow mentioned above with DEV -> QA -> PROD. To my knowledge there isn't any way to properly import a new site into an msm build. (Anyone?) If so, I could keep them separate and then import it when ready. This would at least allow me to fulfill the flow request.

Does anyone else have any nuggets of hope they could provide from doing anything similar?

Answer 1

You could use template permissions to redirect users to where they can't see the page if they do not belong to the correct member group. Design > Template Manager then select template and edit preferences - see screenshot.

Once there disable access to all but the super admin group and another group if necessary. Now no one can see that template. Select the redirect template that you want non-logged in members to view.

Here you could either set up a splash page, i.e. coming soon, or put in a {redirect="http://domain2.com"} and send them to a completely different site.

Now you can view the site while it's being built, but no one else can.

As for importing a new site into an MSM build it's not possible unless you copy existing templates/preferences when initially creating a new site.

Hope this helps.