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Hi I have a small following of members some of who post some who havent started. What I'd like to do is set up something similar to a mailing list from my site where I can send out an email every week or month with a short list of the new posts.
How do I do this? I think I could do it if I had a button which if pressed will send out the emails but how can I set it to run automatically??
basically you just need to make the script that does it when you press a button and then remove the part that requires you to press the button. then, you can either set it up as a scheduled task on Windows or a cron job on *nix systems to run every week, month, first day or the month, or whatever else.
Oh, I didn't know I'd do it this way. I thought it would have to be done from within my site like online... Would it be feasible to do something like when a page loads get the date and if its an 01 (start of the month) do the send thing (like after making sure it hasn't already been done)??? Or is that just a waste of time?Quote:
set it up as a scheduled task on Windows
well, then if your page isn't visited that day at all (or it's down), it won't ever be sent. but then again, if it was down after all -- I guess it wouldn't do that anyway. but it's better to do it via scheduled tasks/cron jobs than through the method you're thinking of, if you ask me. ease of use, and also if one of your users browses your website the first time on the first of the month, then they'll have to wait for that script to execute while loading their page. depending on how many users you DO have, and the potential users you WILL have, this could be a very bad idea!
and I only mean to set it up as a scheduled task on Windows if your SERVER is on windows (not to set it up as a scheduled task on your home PC). otherwise, set it up as a cronjob. if you have shared *nix hosting, most hosting companies have cpanel installed, so you can go to the "cron jobs" category under cpanel and do it all from there. it's really easy, and if you have any trouble you can put in a ticket to your hosting company and ask them how to set up a cron job in cpanel.
I understand what you mean now - thanks!