Dragonrider Computing

Ok, so what is phpList? phpList is a free Open Source Newsletter program that is installed on your server that you control through your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) to design and sned out Opt-IN newsletters, or Campaigns as they are called in the latest version of the software (3.0.x).

phpList can be downloaded for free from the phpList site. If this is something that you have no experience with installing on your web based server (web space) then there are full...

I help out on the forums for phpList, a free to download and use newsletter creating and sending Open Source software, and every now and then the question is asked about which configuration file that someone should be using.

The configuration file, stored in the directory .. /lists/config/ is config.php and this holds what is basically the Quick-Start setup options and values. As a rule this will get your installation working. There is also a config_extended.php file, much bigger in size and...

One question often asked on the phpList forums is how to customise an unsubscribe page. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as making a change on the admin subscribe pages section. By default this is what is shown when someone unsubscribes:

Using The Wharfedale Festival of Performing Arts website's subscribe/unsubscribe page as an example, this is possible:

How is this done?

Find  the file:- <phplist directory>/texts/english.inc (MAKE A BACKUP...

The phpList user manual has been updated for version 3.2.x and is available on the phpList site.

Written for Joomla or Mambo and it should work with any other CMS website though you may need to tweak the instructions to suit as I'm doing this for a Joomla CMS web site.

First create a new Subscribe page in phpList. Give it a suitable title if the default is not for you. Change the intro if you wish but in the Header box remove the two lines

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/styles/subscribe.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet"...

Sometimes in phpList, when sending by php mail() your emails may be classified as Spam! The dreaded Spam!

The solution to avoiding this is to use your own Email settings in place of the php mail() and if necessary, add SPF and DK records.

This tutorial has been updated to refer to version 3.2.7 of phpList.

First, open the lists/config/config_extended.php file, find the smtp section, around line 554-590

# To use a SMTP server please give your server hostname here, leave it blank to use the...

When using phpList for your newsletter subscriptions, it does not seem to automatically update with the latest Top Level Domains (TLDs) such as .tools, .digital etc.

Thanks to Duncan Cameron on the phpList forums, there is an automatic updating method to do this.phplist now holds the list of domains in the config table in its database in the row internet_tlds. The value in the code is a fail-back when that is not present - but I'm not sure why that should happen.

phplist should also...

It is possible to create a small embedded custom subscribe form within your website to take someone's name and email address and auto it to your phpList subcribers list rather than using a full scubscribe page within phpList.

Copy the code below and create a new HTML page to try it out on.
1. You'll need to change the http://yourdomain.com/lists to match your domain and the directory that you installed phplist in, also the subscribe&id=1 will need to match your value for your subscribe...