Has I promised last month, in this post I will explain how to integrate WordPress 2.0 and PHPList 2.10.2.. It’s not the perfect marriage, but definitely it works. Forget all the plugins. You don’t need them.
1. Let’s start by the most obvious, if you don’t have yet WP 2.0 installed, please install it.
2. In the same folder where you installed WP 2.0, create a folder called “lists” or “newsletter”.
3. Install PHPList 2.10.2 in this folder. This “newsletter” or “lists” folder should be the folder with all the files from PHPList.
4. Now it’s the time, to create a subscription form which will send the subscription email to the PHPList database. Let’s imagine that you are using kubrick template, the default template at WP 2.0. Create a new php page, call it "news.php", save it on the default template folder and paste it the following code.
<!– newsletter subscribe below here –>
<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
var fieldstocheck = new Array();
fieldnames = new Array();
function checkform() {
for (i=0;i<fieldstocheck.length;i++) {
if (eval("document.subscribeform.elements['"+fieldstocheck[i]+"’].value") == "") {
alert("Please enter your "+fieldnames[i]);
return false;
return true;
function addFieldToCheck(value,name) {
fieldstocheck[fieldstocheck.length] = value;
fieldnames[fieldnames.length] = name;
<form method="post" action="http://your_domain/your_phplist_folder/?p=subscribe" name="subscribeform" target = "_self">
<input type="text" name="email" value = "">
<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">addFieldToCheck("email","email address");</script>
<input type="hidden" name="list[2]" value=signup />
<input type=submit name="subscribe" value="Subscribe" onClick="return checkform();">
5. At “sidebar.php” from WP 2.0 default template folder and after the searchform add the following code:
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/news.php’); ?>
7. Now you have to create a new list at PHPList, to receive your blog subscriptions, that you can call “Blog”, for instance.
8. Then you have to create a new subscribe page at PHPList, which will have the same layout and design of a regular page of your blog.
8.1. At the “Title” field you write something like: “WordPress Subscribe Page”;
8.3. Now open your blog and view his page source, select all the code and copy it to a notepad or a similar program.
8.4. First of all, look for the most important div of the code of this page source, the div where the content of the post is published. In the default template of WP 2.0, it should be the <div class=”entry”> and cut all of the code before this div, including <div class="entry"> and paste it at “Header” box at subscribe page at PHPList.
8.5. Now delete all the text until you find </div> of <div class="entry">, and cut the rest of the code, which should begin with </div> and paste it at “Footer” box at subscribe page at PHPList. You should look for the "postmetadata", and delete it from this box.
8.6. At the “Thank you page” box at subscribe page at PHPList paste something like this “<p>Thank you for subscribing to our newsletters. Your email has been added to our system. You will be e-mailed shortly with a request to confirm your membership. Please make sure to click the link in that message to confirm your subscription.</p>”, which will be text that will be presented to your subscribers after they subscribe your newsletter.
8.7. At “Text for Button” you can leave only “Subscribe”.
8.8. At “HTML Email choice” choose “Don’t offer choice, default to text” or “Don’t offer choice, default to HTML”.
8.9. At “Display Email confirmation” choose “Don’t display email confirmation”.
8.10. And finally check “Blog” list at “Select the lists to offer”.
This is all that matters. The rest is just about customizing WordPress template or PHPList.
In case of doubts, please contact me.
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