Miscellaneous Hacks - Rotating Banner System

With the Rotating Banner System software, you may publish literally anywhere standard banners and advertising, with no restriction but your imagination. Unlike many other products, it allows to show an unlimited amount of banners and advertising, which are randomly shown at the places you choose, and you may refer generically to an Ad by using specific placeholders.

Also the management is straight-forward and simple to use. Forum administrators with maintenance rights may add, edit and delete records from the Administration Control Panel (ACP), one of each representing a banner. After saving the new banner settings, they are immediately visible at your board.

Compatibility: from vBulletin 3.6.5 onwards

By the way, I do also install the hack on your boards, but since I am very, very busy, it may take some time (weeks) until it gets done.


Tutorials:

• How-to create my first banner (Flash).

Updates:

• 2.0.1: Simple click tracker added, HTML help included.
• 2.0.3: Small bug fixes; additional banner list, navigation bar, E-Mail field for banner event notifications and automatic save on scroll setting; absolute URL to rbs_banner.php in order to allow click tracking on non-standard pages; supported languages: English, Italian; Help file clean-up.
• 2.0.5: Small bug fixes; additional details in banner list; email notification for epired banners.
• 2.0.6: vbCMS compatibility bug fix; additional banner lists.
• 2.0.7: Usergroups filter: now it is possible to define a list of usergroups which may show a banner; additional vbCMS compatibility bug fix.
• 2.0.8: Various fixes and most of all, inclusion of the right files: admin_rbs.php, cpnav_rbs.xml
• 2.0.9: Extra comma fix in new record creation.
• 2.1.0: Fix for an occasional banner type selection bug, when the sample banners have been deleted or disabled.
• 2.2.0 (Major upgrade): Up to 10 different banner locations. Requires changes to your existing placeholders in your templates, since a more generic format has been chosen. If you don't need more than 2 different locations, you don't need to upgrade. Changed files: rbs_banner.php, admin_rbs.php
• 2.2.1: Minor bug fix in files: admin_rbs_h_banner_list.php, admin_rbs_v_banner_list.php
• 2.2.1: Hotfix for Max Clicks saving bug.
• 2.2.2: More listings and less files. PDF Help. Separate Italian add-ons and help. Duplicate button.
• 2.2.3: Minor bug fixes. Changed files: product-rbs.xml
• 2.2.4: Flash Banner support (beta). Changed files: product-rbs.xml, rbs_wrapper.swf, admin_rbs.php, English Help.
• 2.2.5: Hotfix for vBulletin 4.0.2 compatibility bug.
• 2.2.6: Checking for installed Flash Wrapper rbs_wrapper.swf; A few English FAQ; Help files. Changed files: product-rbs.xml
• 2.3.0 (Major upgrade): New modules: Delete Expired Banners, Disable Expired Banners; Detail Banner Statistics with unique access key for your customers; Updated help; Changed files: all.
• 2.3.1: Hotfix for missing field in rbs_hist table. Changed files: none, just update product.
• 2.3.2: Added: Unsupported option for setting any number of available positions between 1 and big bang. Fixed: Small bug and speed issues. Removed: Italian translation. Italians may now request support at www.vbulletin.it. Changed files: admin_rbs.php.
• 2.3.3: Fix: Copy selected forum ID's during banner duplication. Changed: start and end hours for new banners are set to 0:00 and 23:59 respectively. Changed files: admin_rbs.php.
• 2.3.4: Option: Send Mail Before. This option allows to schedule expiring banners differently. New variables for emails: $rbs_enddate: This variable holds the formatted banner ending date and time based on the standard formats for date and time in vBulletin settings; $rbs_name: This variable holds the banner name. EMail Notifications option description: Added direct links to the email phrases for quick changes. Changed files: rbs_mail_cron.php.
• 2.4.0 (Major upgrade): Removed: Option to enable or disable mailing. Banners with email addresses to notify are handled. Setting to reset mailing in single banners. Now, if mailing should be repeated, you will have to edit the banner from phpMyAdmin. Added: Order links in lists. The initial state is ordered by ID, as before. By clicking the titles, the other voices can be ordered. Clicking twice inverts the order. This works in all lists. Options to prevent counting and reducing thus a tiny bit of load. A new bunch of demo banners for new installations. Demo banners are locked into database in order to avoid 30% of the questions because of the 'experts' deleting them before trying the product. They can be disabled and modified though. The true experts can delete them after all testing from the database by using phpMyAdmin without side effects. Changes: Phrase for emailing about expiring banners, now also with direct links to the phrases. Demo banners. Our old publisher ID is replaced with the new ones, and old demo banners are updated with the new ones, if found. The functions have been exported to includes/functions_rbs.php. This makes the product code smaller and easier to maintain, and runs faster on sites where caching/acceleration is enabled. Changed Files: all *.php
• 2.4.1: Option Likelihood. This new option adds a weight to banners and allows thus to show one banner more often than another. The default weight is 100%. We also make sure that the final date of the default banners falls into a valid range. Changed files: includes/functions_rbs.php and rbs_stats.php.
• 2.4.2: Workaround for update sequence problems.

Hacks and unsupported add-ons:

• Banner Rotator Widget To CMS
• Rotate banners in-place
• Italian Translation

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by CybaGirl

Thanks for getting back to me and it's a strange one. I have been playing around with different settings and things to no avail .

I even tried some different programs to create banners but the same thing still happens.

I was thinking my next step would be to paste the code into the Text Field of the configuration page and put a landing page inside the banner.

But if I do this is there anyway that the clicks can still be tracked?

Thanks.

Yes, if you compile [forumhome]/rbs_banner.php?id=N as landing page into your banner and set the URL to your final landing page, where N is the ID of your banner.

[Drache]

I noticed if I put the banner code in vbulletin's default advertise banner script it won't show. Is there a way to work around this?So that I can just put the code inside vb's default first post content.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Drache

I noticed if I put the banner code in vbulletin's default advertise banner script it won't show. Is there a way to work around this?So that I can just put the code inside vb's default first post content.

If you put an X into that space and it shows, also the banner should be shown. But maybe I'm wrong and some additional code runs on that area, although I don't believe ...

[Drache]

Maybe some additional code runs on that area. I am still trying

May I ask you few more questions. I did a search but I couldn't find a documents explaining this stats.

Could you please explain to us what does these stats mean. thanks



Extended Results

Records:

Unique IP's:

Unique Referers:

Unique Servers:

Unique Users:

Anonymous:


Unwanted Results

Direct Access:


Thanks in advance.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Drache

Maybe some additional code runs on that area. I am still trying

May I ask you few more questions. I did a search but I couldn't find a documents explaining this stats.

Could you please explain to us what does these stats mean. thanks



Extended Results

Records:

Unique IP's:

Unique Referers:

Unique Servers:

Unique Users:

Anonymous:


Unwanted Results

Direct Access:


Thanks in advance.

Those statistics are simply records of clicks on banners and logically split into categories. The meaning is literal and nothing special.

The unwanted results list attempts of clicks by scripts or direct access (no referer) and anything else I may come across in the future.

If you go into the rbs_hits table of your database, you will see what data is collected in order to fill those fields. The rbs_stats.php script is a raw example how to extract and elaborate the collected data. You may adapt it to your needs, making however sure to not overwrite it, when you eventually upgrade the product

[printedgear]

Greetings,

I just installed the hack and can not get the default banners to post. I uploaded it and see the google text and google image in the RBS > Banner List. Yes is checked in the RBS > Manage Banners. I'm using 4.1.0 PL 2.

Thanks for your help!

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by printedgear

Greetings,

I just installed the hack and can not get the default banners to post. I uploaded it and see the google text and google image in the RBS > Banner List. Yes is checked in the RBS > Manage Banners. I'm using 4.1.0 PL 2.

Thanks for your help!

Have you made any change to your styles?

This product will replace a formatted string in your templates. Please read the help files and/or see the flash help in the product post to see how to implement your first banner.

[printedgear]

Thank you for your reply. I was following the flash and was trying to get the default google banners to work. My impression from the tutorial was that the google banners would work automatically. Is this incorrect? I have not changed anything in styles after downloading. Also, what help files are you referring to? Thank you again.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by printedgear

Thank you for your reply. I was following the flash and was trying to get the default google banners to work. My impression from the tutorial was that the google banners would work automatically. Is this incorrect? I have not changed anything in styles after downloading. Also, what help files are you referring to? Thank you again.

You will have to make style changes, since there is no "automatic" thing

However the default banners work once there is a placeholder in your styles. The flash tutorial is the best to start with - you may use the controls to step slowly through. In the package you also find a PDF file, which contains also a small FAQ. And last not least, about 1000 posts in this thread ...

[printedgear]

Ah ha! I got it! Thank you so much. I can't wait to learn how to use it. Thanks.