> The reason I do it this way is that I’m not just sharing models/views/layouts – I’m sharing plugins, interceptors, includes; pretty much everything.
But you can still share everything without reversing the order of lookups. I, too, share plugins, interceptors, and even JavaScript (via IIS virtual directories) in my common folder without any hacks.
> Just to clarify: here’s my local file structure:
What if you changed your views convention in each site’s config to be /views/custom/site1 and then set the external location to /views/? Wouldn’t that effectively reverse the order of lookups without having to modify the core?
Thanks!
~Brad
> The reason I do it this way is that I’m not just sharing models/views/layouts – I’m sharing plugins, interceptors, includes; pretty much everything.
But you can still share everything without reversing the order of lookups. I, too, share plugins, interceptors, and even JavaScript (via IIS virtual directories) in my common folder without any hacks.
[Tom Miller] Well, I’m sure it’s possible; but my “solution” (if you can call it that) means .htaccess, Wirebox.cfc, favicon.ico, routes.cfm, rules.xml.cfm – it all gets linked – and a change in my core instantly gets reflected on all sites without me having to do anything (I even have a .sh file to create the symlinks should a new site need to be added). I’m sure you can do the same thing, it’s just different ways of linking this together I guess.
> Just to clarify: here’s my local file structure:
What if you changed your views convention in each site’s config to be /views/custom/site1 and then set the external location to /views/? Wouldn’t that effectively reverse the order of lookups without having to modify the core?
[Tom Miller] Well, that’s what I found interesting about your original comment. I think that would do exactly what I want. I say “I think”, because my brain’s a little mushy at the moment from the weekend! 
Tom.
Tom it will, there is no argument here.
However I still maintain after all these years, that externalviews, externalhandlers, etc., would be seen as places to override things, and I was right on the money.
Which is why I went the way I did as well, but in my defence I didn’t read the release notes where it clearly indicated that you could use externals as core. See my brain saw it the same way, core means standard, and standard conventions to me is not the place to override things with.
Even though as Brad has pointed out, it does work. I just think personally it is backwards in the way it was designed in the first place.