Following and the Digest Email

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Members can follow the writers and topics they like. New posts from them collect in the member’s Following feed, followers can get an email when a writer they follow publishes, and members who ask for it get a regular digest email of what they missed.

Turn it on

Go to WB Plugins > Member Blog > Features.
Under In Member Blog, check Follow writers (on by default).
To send digests, switch on Digest email.
Click Save Features.
To choose how often digests go out, open the Content tab and set Follow digest frequency, then click Save Settings.

Setting	Where	What it does	Default
Follow writers	Features	Members can follow writers and topics and get a feed of their new posts. Emails a writer’s followers when they publish.	On
Digest email	Features	Emails a member a summary of new posts by the writers and topics they follow	Off
Follow digest frequency	Content	How often the digest is sent: Weekly or Daily	Weekly

Digest email needs two things:

Follow writers must be on. With it off, the digest switch is disabled and reads “Needs Follow writers, which is switched off.” Your choice is kept and comes back when Follow is on again.
WB Member Blog Pro. Each member opts in to the digest from their own settings screen, which is part of Pro. Without Pro the switch is disabled and reads “Member opt-in requires WB Member Blog Pro.”

Turn everything on on the Features tab never switches the digest on, because it emails your members. Turn it on yourself when you are ready.

Following a writer or a topic

A signed-in member sees a Follow button:

On a writer profile and in the author box under a post. See Writer Profiles and the Author Box.
On the writer cards of the [bp-member-blog-authors] directory.
On a category’s topic hub. See Topic Hubs. Tags cannot be followed.

After following, the button reads Following. On hover or keyboard focus it changes to Unfollow; click it to stop following. Members cannot follow themselves, and signed-out visitors see no button.

Switching Follow writers off hides every Follow button and feed and stops the follower emails. The follows members made are kept and return when you switch it back on.

The Following feed

Members read what the people and topics they follow published in:

The Following tab of their dashboard or profile Blog tab. It shows the writers and topics they follow (each can be unfollowed from there), then “Latest from people you follow”: the newest 12 posts, three across. A member who follows nobody sees “You’re not following anyone yet” and a few “Writers to follow”.
Any page with the [bp-member-blog-following] shortcode or the Following Feed block.

Add a Following page

Create a page, for example “Following”.
Add the Following Feed block, or the shortcode [bp-member-blog-following].
Publish it and add it to your menu.

Attributes are in the Shortcodes Reference.

Emails about follows

Email	Sent to	When
A writer you follow published	Each follower of the writer	The writer publishes a post (including when a submission is approved)
You have a new follower	The writer	Somebody follows them. Once per follower: unfollowing and following again sends nothing more. With BuddyPress or BuddyBoss the writer also gets a bell notification, which an unfollow takes back while it is unread.
Reading digest	Members who opted in	On the digest schedule, when there is something new

Topic follows never send a per-post email, because a busy topic would send many a day. Posts in followed topics appear in the feed and the digest instead.

Follower emails and on-site notifications are prepared in the background after a post is published, so publishing or approving a post does not wait on them, even for a writer with thousands of followers. With BuddyPress or BuddyBoss, followers also get an on-site notification.

The digest email

A member receives a digest only when all of these are true:

Digest email is on, and Follow writers is on.
The member has opted in. In Pro, the member ticks “Send me a digest of what the writers I follow have published” under Notifications in their blog settings. It is off for every member until they tick it.
The member follows at least one writer or topic.
Something new was published by them since the member’s last digest.

A digest is never sent empty. Each one lists up to 12 new posts, and a member’s first digest covers only the last day or week, depending on the frequency.

Changing Follow digest frequency re-schedules the digest. Switching the digest off removes its schedule. The digest runs on WordPress cron, so on a site with little traffic, set up a real server cron for reliable timing.

Unsubscribing

Every email the plugin sends has a one-click unsubscribe link that works without signing in.

The link switches off exactly one kind of email, and the confirmation page says which: for example “Done. You will no longer receive the digest.” The member’s other notifications are unchanged.
The link is signed for that member. It stops working if the member changes their password; an old link then shows a message saying it is not valid.
With Pro’s Author Dashboard module on, the confirmation page links to “Manage all your notifications”.

Notification preferences

Members choose which follow emails they get under Notifications in their Pro blog settings:

Preference (as members see it)	Default
Tell me when somebody follows me	On
Tell me when a writer I follow publishes a post	On
Send me a digest of what the writers I follow have published	Off

Without Pro there is no screen for these, so every member gets the defaults: follower emails on, digest off.

For developers

Hook	Use
`bpmb_followable_taxonomies`	Filter. Taxonomies members can follow (default `category`).
`bpmb_follow_notify_recipients`	Filter. The followers emailed when a writer publishes.
`bpmb_digest_body`	Filter. The digest email body.
`bpmb_notification_pref_defaults`	Filter. Default notification preferences, including `digest`.
`bpmb_followed`, `bpmb_unfollowed`	Actions. A member followed or unfollowed a writer or topic.