Bulk Settings Questions / Issues

[MikeX3]

I just started using Bulk Settings, and went through the videos and support topics, but I still have questions.

1. When importing a key for WP Settings - General, it brought in every field, like site title, tagline, etc. I left them blank, and it blanked them out on my child sites… which I understand now is probably expected behaviour (good thing I tested on a few sites first). So, I’m curious, when importing a new key, can I delete everything except the fields I want to change… or do I need to leave the top few? For example, see the image below. Can I remove everything in red or is the required for the key to work?

2. Every time I’ve tried on the Settings - General page, it will create two fields for Date and Time. The first one is correct, then the second one sets the same thing as Date/Time Custom. So it then runs and sets the proper setting then immediately overwrites it and sets date/time to custom with a blank field. Is this a bug? Either way, I have figured out how to just delete the second (bad) entry from my Key.

3. How do I only get the fields I want to change instead of grabbing everything on a page?

4. Also, it seems I have to make changes to my MainWP WP site settings to grab the key… and then change them back to how I prefer to have them on my MainWP site (different than the child sites). Is there a Key Builder for basic WP settings where I could just select the fields and options I want to change and then import them to my key ring, instead of affecting my MainWP site settings?

5. Almost forgot, when saving the key to my child sites, on each of them I get a warning… “Generic fail message: The email address entered did not appear to be a valid email address. Please enter a valid email address.” I am not editing this field, and when I go to my child sites, the proper email addresses are there and unchanged, so it’s weird that I’m getting this message.

6. While I’m asking questions, is there an undo option or a way to recover the fields that were changed by this? On the two child sites I tested, it blanked out my Site Name and Tagline. I don’t remember exactly what I had in the tagline option, but luckily that is not that big of a deal right now… but it could be when I start making larger changes later.

[MikeX3]

No matter what I try it’s still deleting my site title and tag line on the child site. The key looks exactly like the image in question 1 above. I have deleted it and reimported the key… deleted all the erronious entires so that it should only change timezone, date, time, week starts on… .yet, it still deletes the title & tagline on my child site.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapać)]

Hi Mike,

At the moment, the BSM extension requires all key fields that are grabbed by the Key Maker.

It is not possible to remove some fields and if left blank, the extension will overwrite values on child sites with empty values.

Using the BSM for WP General settings should be done with caution. If Site URL and WordPress Address get overwritten, child site(s) can end up broken. To fix it, you need to set back correct values in these fields. When required, to handle this settings form, you need to use Boilerplate extension tokens that will actually set correct fields.

Unfortunately, there is no way for the extension to isolate feedbacks from the form submission, so it can sometimes show generic error messages.

[MikeX3]

?? This is literally the example in the first video on Bulk Settings Manager - MainWP WordPress Management …scroll ahead to 1:40. So you’re saying the plugin can’t do what is being demonstrated here?

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapać)]

Hi Mike,

I just said that BSM should be used carefully with the WP > Settings > General Settings form due to the fact that each child site has a unique Site URL and WordPress Address values.

So to do this correctly, you need to use the [site.url] boilerplate token.

By default this token is preset, so you don’t need to add the value manually for each child site.

First, make sure that support for Boilerplate is enabled:

Next, go to edit your key fields. There you should be able to see that this warning is present:

Now, you can replace the URLs with the token:

This is the proper way of using the BSM with the WP General Settings form.

[MikeX3]

This seems backwards from the changes I want to make. I only want to set timezone, date format, time format, and start of week and nothing else on that settings page. I’ll research boilerplate as this concept is new to me.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapać)]

Hi Mike,

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to submit incomplete keys, this would just empty existing values on child sites.
So the usage of the Boilerplate tokens is the best option here.

Here you can find more about the Boilerplate ext. and its help documentation.

[MikeX3]

No worries. Thanks for the info! Fortunately, this is more of a want than a need at the moment. I just recently upgraded to the whole shebang and I’m going through all the features to see what I could use on my sites.

[MikeX3]

I see on the Boilerplate Extension it says “Integrates with the Spinner Extension”… however, I don’t see a Spinner Extension on Extensions - MainWP WordPress Management

That sounds like something that would be very useful for me… presuming this is for spinning text.

[dennis (Dennis Dornon)]

@MikeX3, we retired the Spinner Extension back in January 2020 since it no longer fits the direction I wanted to bring the company. It is still available as a free download on Github, with no support.