Adding your first Subscribers: manual chapter feedback and discussion

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1

Feedback on the following chapter: https://www.phplist.org/manual/ch006_adding-your-first-subscribers.xhtml

2

Since this topic is labeled “adding your first subscribers” I was surprised to find nothing about importing pre-existing lists or, especially, how to format lists.

3

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback :slight_smile: This chapter in the “Basic Use” aimed at the most simple scenario, it’s for new phpList users who are unfamiliar with the system, or for people who are testing, or have simple needs overall. It’s also good so people can understand how phpList works before committing to using it.

The later chapters in the Growing and using complex lists section provide what you need. Perhaps we can link at the bottom of the basic chapter to the more advanced ones?

4

I think this would be a great idea. When I get a chance I’ll pursue the later chapters and maybe make some suggestions about links. I have to say I’ve found the help material very difficult to navigate, and cross-linking like this might have helped me a lot.

5

Yes, we have also been working on an index. The menu on the side should help you find what you need however. If you get stuck, just ask and I can point you :smile:

6

Thinking about this a bit more, it seems to me that the problem I had is exactly a “basic use” problem, and should be addressed under “adding your first subscribers,” rather than linked to. It took me about three or four tries to figure out how to add them. It appears that there isn’t a way to have a list which includes anything other than the email address itself. The example of marking a column in a spreadsheet suggests all I upload is the information in that one column, but elsewhere it seemed to me that there were lots of possibilities – far more than I needed – for uploading additional information for individual subscribers.

7

So what you wanted was to also import attributes? Like Name and Address etc?

8

I wanted that – and I’m still not sure I know how to do it (when I try to upload subscribers to a specific list I can’t see a way to include other attributes, though I remember that there was a way to do it when I uploaded them to the general list of subscribers) but that wasn’t my difficulty. The problem I’m trying to indicate there is twofold: (1) neither issue is addressed under “basic use,” and (2) there’s no easy (or, perhaps, even difficult) way to get to that information from the basic use section.

9

Hi

You just need this https://www.phplist.org/manual/ch013_adding-subscribers-to-lists.xhtml

This really isn’t basic use though, attributes are not basic, basic is like copy paste your emails into the box. Uploading a CSV requires, as you can see, a lof of info and skill. Actually, this chapter has two before it:

https://www.phplist.org/manual/ch011_understanding-subscribers-and-lists.xhtml and
https://www.phplist.org/manual/ch012_creating-your-lists.xhtml

which have pre-requisite information in them, really can’t be covered in basic use I am afraid :smile:
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