Phplist User Guide
Contents
Concepts » 1. the Basics
Users & Lists
phpList employs a very flexible “membership” concept.
A User is an email address plus some Preferences, such as "I always want HTML emails", and, optionally, some Attributes ("my name is Bob", "I'm a Pastafarian").
A List is a grouper around some theme. It has Messages and Members.
A User may be a Member of (or Subscriber to) multiple Lists.
If you Import Users, from a CSV file for example, you have the option of automatically adding them to any of your Lists.
This "Many-to-Many" between Lists and Users (each List may have many Users; each User may belong to many Lists) may seem odd, but, oh, say you have a "Bathroom Safety", "Fishing Tips", and "Lounger Living" mailings. Well, you could setup these three Lists and allow your Users to Subscribe to any or all of your Lists they wish.
Many sites using phpList only have one List, and all Users should be Members of that, so it seems odd, this extra flexibility. You'll find that you can customize messages fairly well to remove any possible confusion for you or your Users.
Messages & Templates
Now the other side of the system, Messages & Templates.
A Message is a single email (event) sent to the Members of one or more Lists (yes, targeting multiple lists is allowed)
A Message may use a Template or you may enter the Message Content in a "one-off" fashion, entering your HTML directly.
A Template must contain a CONTENT Placeholder. This defines an area within your email design that will be filled with the Message Content, allowing you to have a consistent look to your pages, while the content changes with each mailing.
Other Placeholders allow you to include a unique URL for each User that allows them to change their Preferences or Unsubscribe. You may also use any of the optional Attributes you defined.
System Behaviors
Here are a few built-in behaviors of phpList. Love 'em. Hate 'em. Either way, live with 'em.
By design, a single Message is only sent to any User once.
By default Users do not receive Messages until they Confirm their List membership. (as an Admin you are able to override this) This means that as soon as they sign-up for a List they receive a Confirmation Request (email). They must then click the link that was included in the email to acknowledge and agree to List membership.
There are lots more features (some would say quirks, but all have a reason for being there once you see the Big Picture), so explore the documentation.
Documentation Reference
Taken from [[1]]
