Last month I was rewriting one of my ebooks for the Subscribe2 email subscription plugin. It had been almost a year since the white paper first came out, and it really needed revising. Matt had added many new features that made Subscribe2 easier to use for anyone wanting to send their blog posts to a subscriber list.
One of the neat features is the ability to schedule your blog posts:
Twice Daily
Once Daily
Weekly
WP Cron
WordPress itself has limited scheduling capabilities, and this transfers to plugins. It schedules hourly and daily. Now remember, I am not a programmer. I have heard of WP Cron before but figured it was way over my head. So, the part of WordPress that schedules is called WP Cron. (Warning: Visiting that link will increase your understanding of WP Cron even though on a geek scale of 1-10, it ranks about a 7. It is well written and easy to read.) And, I had heard of WP Crontrol, but again, figured it was also way over my head. And really, it still is. 
WP Control
Hang on, I’m going somewhere with this. One of the new features Matt added to Subscribe2 is the ability to interface with the WP Crontrol plugin. So, if you want to set your daily or weekly email digests to go out at a certain time, you could use the WP Crontrol plugin to do that.
How WP Crontrol Works
It isn’t very clear in this screenshot, but what is highlighted is the entry the Subscribe2 plugin added so the user can go in and schedule when they want emails to go out. Some of the entries in this screenshot are basic WordPress functions, and one has something to do with the Akismet plugin. The Subscribe2 entry looks like this: s2_digest_cron. Click ‘Edit’ to set the time and date, ‘Do Now’ to send the digest immediately, or ‘Delete’ to remove the schedule entirely.
Other Uses for WP Crontrol
Another plugin that uses the WP Crontrol plugin for scheduling is the WordPress Database plugin. But, as you can see from my many posts about backups, I’m still not there yet. What I’m beginning to figure out is somehow, using the backup plugin like this will prevent those ‘out of memory’ errors. When I figure that one out, I’ll let you know.
Next, I’ll be starting a series on WP Meta plugins. I didn’t realize it, but there are many to choose from, and just as many uses.
Sign up for my free blog post updates!
Stay tuned! Sign up! Come back! I don’t know when my posts go up now. I’m trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.
~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~
To share this post on the Twitterverse, click the “tweet” button at the top of the post. Or use the “Share This” tool to share using your favorite social network.
Need help with this plugin? Click here to go to my contact form.
Need virtual assistance? Contact me here: Deborah at MyWPWorks dot com.
Product launches? Webinars? Podcasts? Yep, I can do that too.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
Great job on the subscriber2 plugin – works like a charm
I was wondering if you were planning on adding a feature which will send notifications to comments left (specifically to people who have written some comments themselves).
If not, are there any other plugins I could use which would make use of my already large registered users to do just that?
Thanks,
Noam
Hi Noam,
I will forward this feature request to the plugin developer, Matt. There is a new upgrade coming out soon, maybe this is included.
Debbie