WordPress and PHPlist – Jesse heap helps

After finishing my work on wordpress single user 2.0.4 and making it a multi user I wanted to work on phplist. I really like the work that is done and I have forwarded it to all whom I knew for testing. Hedir.com has implemented it and are happy about it. I know I need to make a post for it. You can find some of the features at Hedir.com (including a demo blog). Many could not believe it yet. Few people told me that its not possible as a team of professionals must be working at mu.wordpress.org to make it a multi-user and how could you overtake them in just a day. I have done and am very happy about it. Keeping myself humble I must say that its the experience that helped me do this. I will surely write and show you how it works.

I was very excited to integrate phplist with wordpress. I was studying the code and was not very happy with the standards. I delayed phplist integration and thought of using an existing package. I did a Google to find http://docs.phplist.com/IntegratingPhpListWithOthe… . I thought of trying http://www.jesseheap.com/projects/wordpress-phplis… and applied the plugin within the sidebar. It did not work. I was tired with weeks hectic work and wanted to avoid debugging and I contacted Jesse Heap.

(I am putting the mails in blog as it will only do good to both of us)

Mail 1
Dear Jesse,
http://www.jesseheap.com/projects/wordpress-phplist-plugin.PHP , I was reading this. Will you be available for a little help with this plugin?
Thanks
Aji

Mail 2
Hi Aji – what seems to be the problem?

Mail 3
Hi Jesse,
Thanks for the reply. I tried putting <!–phplist form–> inside the sidebar.PHP for the my http://www.idealwebtools.com/blog/ but it did not work.
It will helpful if you can help me configure my phplist at http://www.idealwebtools.com/mail/ , I can offer the admin passwords if needed. If you can forward me an article which can help me configure rss inside phplist, I tried but it did not work. I certainly need to dive in to understand the code.
Thanks for the help
Aji Issac

Mail 4
Hi Aji,
If you don’t mind, send me the admin login for wordpress and I can double check your settings.  Also add the <!– phplist form –> back to your sidebar.php (I don’t see it there now).
I have not setup the RSS for phplist yet, so I cannot offer support on that, but I did read this article previously that helps with the setup – http://docs.phplist.com/PHPlistRssConceptualSetup
Jesse

Mail 5
Dear Jesse,
Try
Username *********
Password ******
You have admin access now. And I have added the code back to sidebar.php
Let me know if you need admin password for phplist as well. http://www.idealwebtools.com/mail/ .
You are trusted and requested to use the admin access with care.
Thanks,
Aji

Mail 6
Aji,
First of thanks for bringing this issue to my attention.  Apparently the filter I’m using to detect <!–phplist form–> does not work when placed in the sidebar.  It only works when placed in the main content area – i.e. like this test draft post I created on your site (did not publish it): http://www.idealwebtools.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=122
I will work on enhancing the plugin to support placing the subscriber form in the sidebar since I would assume most people would like to be able to do that. 
I’ll keep you advised when the fix is in place.  Sorry about the trouble and thanks for reaching out to me.

Mail 7
Jesse,
Thanks for taking the time for the analysis. Do let me know if you need some help I myself is a part time programmer (I just made the single user wordpress multi user after getting frustrated with mu.wordpress.org). I was trying to integrate phpbb and phplist for http://www.myblogplanner.com. I am having problem in understanding RSS section of phplist as it is not having a good document. I will be spending some more time with phplist code. Tomorrow is Sunday (Church activities) so I am going off to bed early, will be back to computer after 24 hrs.
Thanks again

Mail 8
No problem Aji.  I was able to make a minor tweak in the phplist plugin to support displaying the form in the sidebar.  Download the latest version – http://www.jesseheap.com/projects/wp-phplist-integration.zip
And add the following code in your sidebar where you want the form to appear in your sidebar:
<? php $content = apply_filters(‘the_content’, ‘<p><!–phplist form–></p>’);
echo $content; ? >
This code forces the filter to be applied when processing the sidebar.php content.
Let me know if you are successful in getting the plugin to work with the above modifications.
Also let me know what you find out around the RSS  piece for phplist.  I was planning on looking more into that myself next week for our blog.
Take care,
Jesse Heap

I thank Jesse Heap for helping me with the phplist. I am a programmer and thus a lazy fellow to allow the mails do the complete talking. I am still not happy with phplist integration as the RSS is not working smoothly as expected. I am working a project for next 20 days and want to completely concentrate there, so expect the integration only after 20 days.