[wp-hackers] Best practices for plugin with complicated settings?

[Anca Mosoiu]

Hello,

I'm working on a plugin that will be storing about 10-15 rows of options 
information, and I'm wondering about best practices for this.

The scenario:

My site is going to be connected with several other sites where content 
will be cross-linked.  For each "sister site", I need to store a URL, an 
authentication token, and a list of categories where the URL will be 
displayed. 

The questions:

Is this data something I should store using the site options table, or 
should I make my own table?  Reading through the Plugin and Settings API 
sections, I didn't see any examples or information about settings that can have 
multiple values, or how to handle array values in a setting.  Does the 
Settings API automatically do the right thing when presented with a 
setting in array format?  

Does the site settings table work the same way as post meta, where we can
save multiple values with the same key.

This is my first foray into plugins with settings, so I'm hoping to 
start off on the right foot.

Thanks,

Anca.