Create user

As we don't have subscribe pages for automatic user creation (and as we're the administrator anyway), let's add a sample user:

On saving, the page will refresh, with the user's details permanently on the page, as well as some additional administration links (unsubscribe, history, and so on). Click on back to the list of users to return to the user list:

The user list now shows that we have a single confirmed user, who's subscribed to one list.

Click on the send a message link in the right-hand navigation panel to send your first message:

Sending a message

To send the most basic of messages:

Processing the message queue (in test mode)

Because we haven't yet disabled test mode, no actual e-mail will be sent. phpList will make us aware of this in big, bold, red text. However, this does afford us the opportunity to check that everything else is working as expected:

Disabling test mode

Now that we're confident that we've completed the initial setup correctly, let's disable the test mode, so that we can do a real e-mail delivery.

To disable the test mode, edit config/config.php on line #191 and change this line:

define ("TEST",1);

To:

define ("TEST",0);

Save the file and click on process queue again to send the e-mail for real.

Processing the message queue (for real)

Once you have clicked on process queue again, your message will be processed for real. The test subscriber will receive their message and the list admin will receive a delivery report:

Summary

In this chapter, you've learned about how to install and configure phpList, as well as some basic administration tasks, including:

In the next chapter, we'll talk about enabling users to subscribe to your lists using subscribe pages and attributes.