[wp-hackers] Two new, long-overdue plugins to make your wordpress life a little easier...

[Mike Schinkel]

On Oct 30, 2011, at 8:25 AM, Dion Hulse (dd32) wrote:
> So I've remained quiet on this issue so far, but there's 2 separate things
> being battled against here:...

That was a really excellent post!  Lots of details and a valid attempt to view the issue from many different perspectives; kudos.

One of the things I think people for whom the current setup does not address their needs are yearning for is a (defacto-) standardized approach to the problem so that 1.) they don't each have to learn what works and what doesn't through trial and error, and 2.) that they can benefit from others working to improve the same process instead of each person haven't to perfect the process completely on their own.

In that vein I would ask, are there any things we can do to move the ball down the field, even if only by a little bit?

> If I was dealing with a dev->staging->production setup, I know the exact
> configuration I would have: ( NOTE: I'm NOT suggesting this for a simple
> site-to-site transfer)
> * wp-config.php which dynamically loads wp-{$domaincontext}-config.php,
> Allows me to have different Database details and WP_DEBUG etc based on the
> context of the site being loaded
> * WP_SITEURL and WP_HOMEURL defined in above config files, You want to
> specify what site is being loaded after all.

Let's use this as a starting point. I know Mark Jaquith has suggested this approach in the past. I think this can address all use-cases.  What does the hacker community think about baking this type of logic into /wp-load.php?  What about optionally loading a domain-specific file, if it exists, before loading wp-config.php?  

For example, if a browser requests http://example.com/ then /wp-load.php might look for ABSPATH . '/example.com-config.php' or  ABSPATH . '/../example.com-config.php' and load it if it exists?  It won't solve this root relative issue, but it will be a start?  (If this is not controversial I can add a trac ticket...)

And if this solves some problems, maybe we can then take more baby-steps to adding fixes that are not controversial that an empower more people to address their own needs?

-Mike