Hi,

I recently did a complete re-do of my site with the most current Joomla version just to start from scratch. One of the key features of my site is that it is a jobs resource and I use YahooGroups for handling the mailings (I have been with YahooGroups and its early iterations for 15 years so I am not looking to switch). Up until two years ago YahooGroups provided an RSS feed for its message threads which was a great easy way to integrate current postings into my site. But when they did their big overhaul they killed the RSS feed and I finally have time in my schedule to figure out a work around (without trying to migrate my 16,000 member list to a new service). I have read about K2 for a long time and I decided with my clean start I would be using it, though maybe it is more of an application than I need, but it seems robust. But it lacks one feature I was really looking for. The ability to mail something to my website and have it automatically posted as content. My goal was to set up a special email account for my jobs list and have those postings appear as complete articles on my website (which would be a big improvement over the old RSS method I was using). Since I was using K2 already and also wanted to use the email to post feature for other content sections on my site for news, etc... I started looking for a way to add that functionality and came across Blogsten.

I purchased Blogsten Pro and then realized I also had to purchase the K2 extension that would allow me to have an email sent to Blogsten and then posted in a K2 category. That was about $85 US. After I received the component and plugin I installed them and they would not work. It turned out the system was sending out old versions of one and then I found later it also sent old versions of the plugin so that took quite a bit of back and forth and head scratching to get figured out - Props to Blogsten for their tech support which has been very responsive. But at the end of the day I am not happy with paying $85 for tools that don't work and then having to beta test them. Again to their credit they are responding quickly on things, but it concerns me that the developers seems to be lagging in keeping their site current, especially with sending out old versions and plugins that do not work. I am currently testing a version of the Blogsten K2 plugin that is working better than the old version (which did not function) but it is still not at a level where I can put it on a live site. This leads me to believe that there are not many people buying and using either this app or plugin if I am the one finding all these bugs (and testing them!).

So my concern is that to get the feature I want (email content) on my Joomla site right now I am reliant on 4 levels of Applications working in harmony: Joomla -> K2 - Blogsten Pro - Blogsten Pro K2 Plugin. If something breaks it is going to be a lot of tools to have to sort through to figure out what is broken.

On doing more research I see that both EasyBlog and RSBlog have an email content feature integrated. I have used other RS products and been pleased with them. But I asked their tech support and they confirmed RSBlog does not integrate with K2. And from what I can tell EasyBlog does not either.

My other goal for my site is to eventually allow a few peers to have front end blogging access and it seems K2, EasyBlog and RSBlog all offer that feature.

So my question(s) is:

Should I abandon K2 and just go with Joomla for my static content and install either EasyBlog or RSBlog to get the ability to email content to certain categories?
Should I stick with K2 and struggle through these problems with Blogsten Pro and its K2 plugin?
Are there other better options out there that I missed in my research?

TIA.

Hello Robert,

Unfortunately K2 does not natively have the option to post via mail.
I have not used it in the past so I cannot recommend an alternative extension to Blogsten.