Home
>
Web Development
>
Newsletter Management Using PHP w/o mySQL for Beginners

Newsletter Management Using PHP w/o mySQL for Beginners

Let's begin by setting some limits. If you're like me, you like to keep it simple. All we're doing is collecting email addresses together for our mailing list, so biochemical engineering is out the window. If you're using Thunderbird (or that MS product), you can send nicely formatted newsletters out and retain all of the other awesome features of your email program so there's really no need for databases, logins, or pretty much anything else. We're going to stay far away from anything non-essential.

To keep it simple, I'll assume you have Dreamweaver or a comparable WYSIWYG composer; however, if you are editing source code you can click here to see an expanded version of this article with source code. Also, I've assumed that you have an extremely basic familiarity with PHP. If not, please begin by reading this click here to see an expanded version of this article with source code (for absolute beginners).

There are only 3 steps we're going to need:

Put HTML on the page to collect the user's name and email address.

Add in a little PHP and (possibly) change a filename.

Receive and process the emails.

Marching on, we need to put some HTML on our page to let the visitor enter in their name and email address. To do this using Dreamweaver, you'll need to create a form with the POST method, a text input named visitor_name, a text input named visitor_email, and a submit button.

We now have our excellent mailing list form up and you should check to make sure that it ended up where you planned. At this point, you may need to make another slight change. If the file's extension is not php, php3, php4, or phtml you should change the file's extension to php. Now, you will need to be careful here as file extensions are extremely important, so you may lose functionality when you change the file's extension. If this is the case, click here to see an expanded version of this article with source code and find a tutorial for the language.

Take a breather and get ready for step 2. Since this is a PHP tutorial, we're going to take a closer look at the PHP code used to send us the email. Being a language, we'll need to learn enough of the PHP vernacular to 1) use the information the user submitted, 2) create the body of the email, and 3) send the email.

The form we created sends 2 pieces of information: visitor_name and visitor_email. When PHP receives them it realizes that someone POSTed some information and to make it easy for you to get ahold of it creates a couple of special "things" you can use to refer to what the user entered: $_POST['visitor_name'] and $_POST['visitor_email']. Why does it call them by funny names? Well the $_POST part assures you that it was information that was submitted by your visitor and not some other PHP somewhere on your page. The part in quotes allows you to pick which piece of information was submitted by your visitor (don't stress on the brackets - they just separate the two pieces of information).

Great! We now have our visitor's information, so let's send it to ourselves. Sending email in PHP almost seems too easy. We just need to modify this line mail(TO, SUBJECT, MESSAGE); by replacing each of the bold capitalized words and adding this inside of PHP tags to our page. Replace TO with your email address in quotes. Replace SUBJECT with the subject you want to appear on the email inside of quotes. In an effort to keep it simple, replace MESSAGE with "{$_POST['visitor_name']} at {$_POST['visitor_email']} would like to subscribe to your mailing list." By now, the MESSAGE replacement is probably self-explanatory except for the curly braces. The curly braces just reassure PHP that the information inside of them really does refer to something it should already know (in this case what our visitor submitted).

Now we just need to include our modified line in the HTML page. Here's the whole modified line (don't forget the PHP tags!):

mail("MY EMAIL ADDRESS","Newsletter Subscription","{$_POST['visitor_name']} at {$_POST['visitor_email']} would like to subscribe to your mailing list.");

If you're a really observant reader, you're already wondering how PHP knows to wait until someone's submitted a subscription request. Well, in the example above, it doesn't. It's also missing some kind of message to inform your subscriber that their request was successful. Since this is introductory material and already lengthy, I'll save that explanation for another article. Just follow everything you've learned above and use this line of code instead (I've bolded my special addition), substituting the success message for one of your own:

if (isset($_POST['visitor_email'])) { mail("MY EMAIL ADDRESS","Newsletter Subscription","{$_POST['visitor_name']} at {$_POST['visitor_email']} would like to subscribe to your mailing list."); echo "Subscription Complete. Thank you!"; }

Er, that's all folks! You'll start receiving emails which you can then add to a mail list in Thunderbird. To manage unsubscription requests, just have a little note at the end of your mailing list saying to reply to the email to be removed and then edit your mailing list.

Jeremy Miller - Webmaster of click here to see an expanded version of this article with source code - The *NEW* PHP Reference & Tutorial Site For Non-Programmers

recurring cleaning service Mundelein ..

In The News:

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

Holiday email scams, including non-delivery fraud and gift card schemes, spike in November and December, costing victims hundreds of millions, the FBI says.

Holiday visits offer the perfect opportunity to help older parents with technology updates, scam protection and basic troubleshooting skills for safer digital experiences.

Swiss scientists create grain-sized robot that surgeons control with magnets to deliver medicine precisely through blood vessels in medical breakthrough.

Researchers exploited WhatsApp's API vulnerability to scrape 3.5 billion phone numbers. Learn how this massive data breach happened and protect yourself.

Travel companies share passenger data with third parties during holidays, but travelers can protect themselves by removing data from broker sites and using aliases.

Xpeng's humanoid robot moves so realistically that crowds believed it was fake, marking a major advancement in robotics technology ahead of 2026 commercial launch.

Researchers discover phishing scam using invisible characters to evade email security, with protection tips including password managers and two-factor authentication.

iPhone and Android users can reduce battery drain and data usage by restricting Background App Refresh to Wi-Fi connections instead of mobile networks.

Scammers nearly stole an Apple account by exploiting the support system with authentic-looking tickets and phone calls, users can protect themselves with safety steps.

FoloToy restored sales of its AI teddy bear Kumma after a weeklong suspension following safety group findings of risky and inappropriate responses to children.

Threat intelligence firm Synthient uncovers one of the largest password exposures ever, prompting immediate security recommendations.

Viral video shared by Elon Musk shows Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots performing tasks from cooking to construction, garnering over 58.5 million views on social media.

Chinese hackers used Anthropic's Claude AI to launch autonomous cyberattacks on 30 organizations worldwide, marking a major shift in cybersecurity threats.

Apple's new Sleep Score feature gives you a rating for your nightly rest quality. Learn how to set it up on your Apple Watch and iPhone today.

Essential phone settings to enable before losing your device, including Find My network, location services and security features for iPhone and Android.

The Fox News AI Newsletter gives readers the latest AI technology advancements, covering the challenges and opportunities AI presents.

Cybersecurity research shows weak passwords remain a major threat, with simple patterns and number sequences putting millions of accounts at risk.

New Android malware BankBot YNRK silences phones, steals banking data and drains crypto wallets automatically. Learn how this advanced threat works.

FDA approves first human trial for Paradromics' brain-computer interface that could restore speech for paralyzed patients through neural technology.

New phishing platform QRR targets Microsoft 365 users across 1,000 domains in 90 countries. Learn how to spot fake login pages and protect your accounts.

OpenTable now uses AI to track your dining habits and share insights with restaurants. Learn what data they collect and how to protect your privacy.

Google's discontinued Nest thermostats still secretly upload home data to company servers despite losing smart features, raising serious privacy concerns.

New Android malware NGate steals NFC payment codes in real-time, allowing criminals to withdraw cash from ATMs without your card. Learn protection tips.

DoorDash confirms data breach exposing customer names, emails, addresses after social engineering attack. Learn how to protect yourself from scams.

Newsletter Management Using PHP w/o mySQL for Beginners

Web Development