Creating a phpList Template

If you plan to use a header and/or footer on your newsletters, the easiest way to do this is to create a template for your newsletter which will contain the header and footer so that you don’t have to add them every time. Go to Templates in the right sidebar and choose add new template.

When you click the image icon, a box will pop up. Give it the URL of the header image that you have already uploaded to your server and click save. This will insert your header.

Next, you need a placeholder for your content. To add this, simply type [CONTENT] into the box. Your screen should look something like this:

To add a footer, just follow the same process as adding the header image. When you are finished, tick all three boxes at the bottom for it to check your file and link references and hit the “save changes” button.

It may prompt you to upload your image again and if so, just do it…I can’t explain why it does this, but if you comply, you can be sure your image will be there. Now, you’ve created your template. Let’s send a message using it.

Using Your Custom Template to Send a Message

Click “send a message” in the menu in the right sidebar. The first tab that is active in the message window is the “content” tab. This is where you add what you want between your header and footer. You can enter formatted text and you can also add images. To add an image, click that image icon again and enter the URL for your previously uploaded image. One thing to note here…if you plan to link the image and don’t want a border around it, be sure to enter “0″ in the border box, like this:

After you enter your content, click the “save changes” button. Then click the Format tab.

If you want to schedule your newsletter to be sent at a later time, click the Scheduling tab and make the appropriate selections…and click “save changes” again. Lastly, choose the list you wish to send your message to on the Lists tab. That’s all you need to do to create your message.

Sending the Message

Manual Processing
There are different ways to process your messages, but unless you have a cron job set up, you’ll need to process the message queue manually. If you have messages that are embargoed (scheduled to send later), you still have to click the Process Queue link in the right sidebar so that it will know to send your message, even if it is at a later time or date. However, if you have a message embargoed, you can’t close the browser window until the message is sent. This can cause a problem if you compose a message and process the queue hours (or even days) before you want your message to be sent. Also, if your host has limits on the number of messages you can send per hour, you will have to leave your browser window open until all of the messages have been sent. However, you can also use a cron job to do this for you.

Cron Job Processing
A Cron Job is basically a command that is run automatically as you schedule it. You can tell the server to run a command every 30 seconds, every hour, every day, whatever you want. So, if you use a Cron Job, it will run and your first batch will send. Then, an hour later (or whatever interval you set it for), it will run again and the next batch will send. You don’t have to hit the “process queue” button, you just create your message and send it or set it to be sent at a certain date/time. The Cron Job will do the rest. No worries about leaving that browser window open, either…you can “fix it and forget it”.

There are some instructions at phpList that cover setting up a Cron Job manually, but unless you have cPanel, you’ll probably want to call for some help with that. If you have cPanel, it’s a pretty simple process. However, it can depend a little on your host. For this particular client, the hosting was on LunarPages and I can say that this definitely worked for her…if it doesn’t work for you, your host might be able to help you tweak the settings so that it does.

First, let’s assume that you have a large number of subscribers and that your host has some limits on the number of mails that can be sent per hour. Grab your config.php file from your phpList installation. It’s inside the config folder inside the folder you installed phpList in. Use your ftp client to download it and open in Notepad, TextEdit or Dreamweaver. Look for these lines:

# define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
# is disabled and messages are sent out as fast as possible
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE",0);

# define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD",3600);

Change that to meet your hosting requirements, save, and upload back to the server.

Next, copy this and paste it into a blank file in whatever you used to edit the config file:

Replace the obvious variables with your own and then save that file as processqueue.php. Create a folder called cron inside your phpList folder. Upload your new file to that folder.

Lastly, go to your cPanel and click on Cron Jobs, then click on Standard

and click on the grayed options:

Now, in the top box where is says “Command to run:” enter this:

php -q /home/yourserverinfo/public_html/your phplist folder/cron/processqueue.php >/dev/null

again, replacing the obvious variables with your own.

That should be it. I’m no expert, I’m the first to admit it. I got the last part of this tutorial from this thread in the LunarPages forum and want to give credit where credit is due. I also take no responsibility for any issues that come from the use of this information as I am simply trying to decode the mystery that is phpList and offer some (hopefully) useful information to help you use phpList.

Good luck!