WordPress “Writing by Email” Feature
I’m just now trying one of the features of WordPress 2.0. I’m not sure how often I’ll use it, but at some point it may come in handy. It’s the Write by Email [http://codex.wordpress.org/Blog_by_Email] feature that allows you to send the blog an email which it then converts to a post.
The problem seems to be, however, that it’s still a two step process. In order for the email to post, I still have to run a php script that retrieves the email (as if it were a POP3 mailbox) and only then will it actually post. It would be nicer if I could just send the email and it would post automatically. I don’t see the benefit otherwise. It’s just as easy to login to my server and publish from within. I’ll do some searching around to see if there isn’t a way to automate the process. In the meantime, just consider this a test. (Update: Yes, there is a way to automate the php script. It’s called WP-Cron [http://www.skippy.net/blog/2005/05/26/plugin-wp-cron/] and it’s a plugin for WordPress. If I decide that an email feature will be useful, this is how I’ll be setting this up.
The other problem that just occured to me is that the emails must be sent as text-only emails. That means that any links I post will be long, ugly things (no hypertext) like the one above that links to the Writing by Email tutorial in WordPress and the WP-Cron Plugin link.
Possibly Related Posts:
- The New Site Design (WordPress 2.0) January 26, 2006
- Pageflakes Tempts Me, Again May 6, 2006
- Upgraded to WordPress 2.7 December 14, 2008
- Windows Live Writer works with WordPress August 13, 2006
- What Do People Know About Your Computer? March 10, 2006
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Thanks for the information, it was very helpful.
Comment by care — May 21, 2006 @ 6:25 pm
If you use the Markdown plugin, your links should be displayed properly.
The big problems I see with this are:
- attachments to emails: I’d love it if I could attach pictures and have them displayed properly on my blog
- password protection: it would be *hugely* useful if I could specify whether I want to password-protect a post in the email
You can see where I’m going with this…if I could get those two things out of the way, I can convince my sister to stop sending emails with family pictures, and just post them to a family blog completely transparently!
Comment by Uzair — December 11, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
I am having tons of problems with this feature. The main thing I need it for is to allow moBlogging from a BB or Treo. The 2nd step is the real problem. I am hitting a wall with the WP-Cron: the pluggin is discontinued (actually says obsolete in WB 1.1) this is driving me nuts what should be a simple feature to use has had me hung up for months now?
srry to vent here, but this was one of the top hits I got on google. any help will be welcome.
Comment by Yellowbeard — July 1, 2007 @ 8:30 am