Subscribe2 Development

I’ve begun working on the next version of subscribe2, version 2.2.0. This version will only work with WordPress 2.0 and above (whenever it’s released).

Read on for a quick run-down of some of the new features.

• Removal of the subscribe.php helper page, which has been the bane of my support existence. The new version will contain all user and admin functionality inside the single plugin file.
• Introduction of a new HTML tag, <-subscribe2->, which will be replaced by either the subscription form or the response to a form submission. This should allow you to place the subscribe form on any post or page in your blog!
• A new menu for registered users to control their subscription options:
  • subscribe to email notifications for individual categories
  • select plaintext or HTML email delivery
  • select excerpt or full message delivery

Obviously, subscribe2 provides some real incentives for readers to sign up to become registered users of the blog. To further encourage that, and to make some of the coding decisions easier, subscribe2 will remove some options for the general public:

• non-registered subscribers will receive excerpts only
• non-registered subscribers will receive plaintext email only

These changes will result in subscribe2 generating more mail per post, as it sends mail for each combination of plaintext/excerpt, plaintext/full text, html/excerpt, and html/full text. For most users this won’t be a problem, but I’ve received a few support requests from users of really restrictive hosts that limit that number of emails allowed per hour (yuck!).

Development is slow, but steady. I hope to have version 2.2.0 ready as close to the release of WordPress 2.0 as possible.