Plugin / Auto-Schedule Posts

Changelog

3.6

• The custom post status is registered with WordPress so that posts queued for automatic publishing can be seen and edited in the WordPress Posts admin area.
• This version updates the deactivation function so that scheduled posts functionally become orphans. Previously deactivation would result in scheduled posts staying in the database but with a post status that would not show up anywhere in the WordPress Admin interface. The new deactivation function changes the status of scheduled posts to “draft” so that they can be handled as the author sees fit after the plugin has been deactivated.
• New function to “Publish All” on the settings page – each queued post is published.
• New function to “Delete This” on the settings page. Individual posts may be deleted without having to go to the post administration page.
• This has been tested in WordPress 3.5.1

3.5

• This version adds compatibility for network activation on multisite installs of WordPress. Special thanks to Franck for finding the problem and helping me test the fix. It also removes an unnecessary restriction where the interval was not allowed to be more than a single day – I decided to leave a restrictions of 100 days. This has been tested in WordPress 3.2.1

3.0

• This version adds a feature that I had long hoped to offer – the ability to publish posts at random intervals with some control about how many posts are published in a day. Publication still takes place within the specified publication window but it only publishes a specified percentage of the time within that window. I have also added options to publish a random post rather than the next post in the queue or a random post by the least recent author.

2.3

• Special thanks to Chris Bell for finally tracking down the root cause of the timezone bug and providing a fix. This version integrates that fix. This has been tested in WordPress 3.2.1

2.2

• There were some bugs in version 2.1 that interfered with the publishing operations. There was also a bug in the force publish code that posted the wrong timestamp on the posts. This version resolves those issues. This has been tested in WordPress 3.2.1

2.1

• As of WordPress 3.0 the publishing function was misinterpreting the system time and failing to publish or delay publication based on user settings. This version resolves those issues.

2.0

• Instead of setting posts to the distant future the plugin now sets them to a new status – “auto-schedule” This removes them from the display of posts to edit. To compensate I have added a feature on the options page to edit posts waiting to be published as well as an option to force publication of a particular post without regard to the settings of the plugin. As a result of the bug in WP 2.9 with internal cron jobs I also added a button to the options page that will manually publish a post in the event that automatic publishing is not happening (I hope that WordPress does not have the problem again, but I noticed a similar feature on another plugin that proved handy before the 2.9.1 upgrade so I am leaving the feature in this plugin as well.

1.0

• After using this for quite some time I discovered one wrinkle to iron out – in version 0.9 the last published post time was not handled correctly so when updating options new posts could be published before the scheduled time. Now updating options will not open the gate for an extra post to be published.

0.9

• A virtually beta release – the posts are caught and scheduled, but I would like to add a feature such as only scheduling on the hour (as opposed to at least an hour apart).