iWeb Blogging: Allowing Users to Subscribe Via Email?

J

joletzring

Registered
Hello everyone,

I have searched everywhere for this with no luck. I am new to iWeb. I just created a site in iWeb and a blog. Currently my blog has a RSS subscription button that iWeb put in.

But how do I allow users to subscribe to my blog via email? How do I put a tab/button, etc. on the blog so that users can be notified of new blog entries via email?

Any help is much appreciated-
 
That probably requires knowledge of HTML/JavaScript programming and is more than likely beyond the scope of what iWeb is capable of.

Think of it like this: your subscribers know where your blog is located (via RSS), but your blog doesn't know about your subscribers -- so how is it supposed to send emails to these people?

I'm not really sure what you mean by "allow users to subscribe to blog via email." Do you want to be able to send emails to certain people with a link to your blog? Do you want your users to be able to send an email to a particular address to "subscribe" to the blog?

Please explain in more detail.
 
Sorry...my post wasn't clear.

Here is what I want to be able to do: have a button/link on the blog that says something like "subscribe to blog via email." Then if a user elects that option, they can put their email address in and when I post a new blog entry, the blog will automatically notify them of the new entry via email.

A lot people don't use RSS feeds and I am afraid without an email subscription option, people will visit the blog only once and not know when new entries are added.

Does that make sense?
 
Much clearer -- and that, unfortunately, requires some sort of database structure behind the website as well as some basic programming (it would be possible with JavaScript, php, or potentially other web-enabled languages). If you are versed with these types of things, it would be pretty simple to accomplish and I can post a pseudo-code/outline of how it would work.

If you're not versed in this kind of thing, or are not using a software package that takes care of that kind of structure for you (Wordpress, etc.), then it is most definitely beyond the scope of what iWeb is capable of.
 
I guess that answers why it isn't easy to find a solution on the Internet.

I am definitely not versed in those programming tools you mentioned. It didn't seem like a very robust feature--I am surprised that iWeb can't handle it.

Oh well...I guess I will just have to stick with having people subscribe via RSS feeds. Do people need to have/use an RSS reader in order to make subscribing to the blog in that manner practical?
 
It's not that it's a "robust" feature -- it just requires a few tools and support technology that is not present on all web design packages. It's quite simple, but one must have a level of knowledge about raw coding for the web in order to accomplish it for the most part, especially with a graphically-based web layout program such as iWeb.

It's kind of like an oil change for a car -- it's an extremely simple procedure, but unless you already know how to do it, you can't just hack your way through it the first time... otherwise, we'd have absolutely no need for those "instant oil change" garages that are on every street corner (and, in terms of web coding and databases, we'd have no need for developers!).

There are many ways to read an RSS feed -- Safari has a reader built-in, so all you need is a link to the RSS feed for someone to subscribe. If they're not using Safari, I know that Outlook on the Windows side of things also supports RSS feeds.

RSS is typically something that people know what they're doing with it -- if someone is aware of an RSS feed, they're probably versed with RSS and have successfully subscribed and read other RSS feeds as well. A dedicated RSS feed reader would probably offer more advanced RSS reading features (aging, notifications, organizational tools, etc) over a web browser that has built-in RSS support, but if all your readers are going to be doing is viewing blog entries via RSS, then the most basic of RSS support would be fine.
 
My friend and I have just set up a website on IWeb, but for some reason we cannot upload our RSS Feed into 3rd party websites, such as "FeedBurner.com", "FeedBlitz" and "Feedity".

OUR OBJECTIVE: To allow users on our website to "Subscribe via Email" to our blog. Doing so, Every time we decide to write a new post on the blog, they'll get an email notification with the actual BLOG in the details, or at LEAST a notification of a new post, and a link to direct them appropriately.

THE PROBLEM: When trying to upload our RSS feed URL into websites like "FeedBurner.com", what we receive is an error message like this..

An error occurred connecting to the URL: unknown protocol: feed

Now this isn't just with THIS particular site. There is an error message for every site we've tried to upload our feed onto. It's not always the same error message, but what they're generally trying to tell us is that our feed isn't responding to their site. Our guess is that there is something we need to tweak with IWeb in order to get the appropriate address for sites like "FeedBurner".

Whatever the fix may be, we have a feeling it must be a very simple coding fix or a metaphorical "knob" we need to turn in order to correct this problem. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
 
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