... but I may be being stupid.
Not necessarily arm-twisting for a 'how-to' answer, more just a pointer to a 'yes-you-can-now-get-off-your-butt-and-work-it-out'...
I can see how to set a rule to, say, send an email whenver a Book is updated. But while I work through the documentation, I wondered if it was possible to set up rules such that:
Book list:
Book A
Book B
Book C
User list:
USER1
USER2
USER3
Whenever a new page is added to Book A (and only Book A - not to any Book), email message type 1 is sent to USER1 and USER2
Whenever an existing page is modified in Book A, email message type 2 is sent to USER1, USER2 and USER3
When Whenever a new page is added to Book C (and only Book A - not to any Book), email message type 3 is sent to USER1 and USER3
Whenever an existing page is modified in Book B, email message type 4 is sent to USER1, USER2 and USER3
In essence, I have different groups of readers reading different books, who need to know if their specific book or books have been added to or changed so they know to come back and look at the site.
Comments
Any user references?
To accomplish the functions you describe you must have some kind of connection between the users and the books – and this connection must be usable by Rules.
It could be done in a number of ways:
I think all solutions will need Views Bulk Operations, since you want to carry out an action on a list of users. (Unless you're using Rules 2 for Drupal 7, that is. Rules 2 allow loops.)
I made a screencast describing how to use Rules and VBO together some weeks ago. If you're interested, turn your volume up to max and visit http://nodeone.se/blogg/nodeone-talks-drupal-rules-vbo-revisited.
Good luck!
//Johan Falk, NodeOne, Sweden