How can I run two themes with S2M?

[16k_zx81]

I need to be able to run two different Wordpress themes on my members site. The site actually sells wordpress themes so I need members to be able to visit pages from two separate theme installations so they can see how both themes look.

Im thinking of creating a subdomain, and am wondering if this is the most straightforward approach in regard to S2M managing the page restrictions and membership access across both sites.

I also wondered if it would be better to use the same domain but to install another copy of wordpress to a subfolder of the same domain that S2M is currently on.

Could anyone advise what the 'best practice' approach is to manage two themes using S2M as easily and trouble free-ly as possible?

Subdomain, Subfolder, Other?

[Raam Dev]

Hello,

You cannot manage two separate WordPress installations (i.e., two 'themes') with a single copy of s2Member. (Well, technically you could, but it would require a lot of hacking into the core of s2Member.)

s2Member is heavily integrated with WordPress itself, making use of the entire WordPress user base and basing restrictions on pages and posts for the WordPress installation. It's a very close and integrated relationship. So attempting to restrict posts/pages on another WordPress installation definitely wouldn't work out of the box.

[16k_zx81]

So I cant achieve this with the multisite feature?

[Raam Dev]

The multisite feature allows you to install s2Member on the primary blog and then allow sub-sites access to their own copy of s2Member. Since WordPress multi-site is not designed to share things like the user base or other settings between sub-blogs, s2Member couldn't easily work in that way even if you wanted it to.

Please see WordPress -> Create a Network:

The sites in a multisite network are separate, very like the separate blogs at WordPress.com. They are not interconnected like things in other kinds of networks (even though plugins can create various kinds of interconnections between the sites). If you plan on creating sites that are strongly interconnected, that share data, or share users, then a multisite network might not be the best solution.