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 jnmann

OK, reinstalled the package and I have 2 banners...at long last! How do I get them to randomly rotate?

Does rotate simply mean randomly appear on screen refresh?

yes

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by MentaL

can you disable stats with this?

you may change the code accordingly, changing from:

PHP Code:

// Increment impression counts
if(count($qids))
{
    $SQL = "UPDATE " . TABLE_PREFIX . "rbs_banners 
        SET impressions=impressions+1 
        WHERE id IN(" . implode(',', $qids) . ")";
    $vbulletin->db->query_write($SQL);
} 


to:

PHP Code:

// Increment impression counts
if(0 && count($qids))
{
    $SQL = "UPDATE " . TABLE_PREFIX . "rbs_banners 
        SET impressions=impressions+1 
        WHERE id IN(" . implode(',', $qids) . ")";
    $vbulletin->db->query_write($SQL);
} 


Remember you have to repeat this after every upgrade ... unless I'll add it to the options, which is actually a good tip

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by ComoEstaEso-com

Hello,
This is working in our vB 4.1.5 PL1 installation with vBSEO
I followed the formatting instruction on the PDF.

I think that my questions are basics that are flying over my head.
A test banner is not showing, when called from a post in a thread.

I have the default Google Ads enabled in "ID" 1 and 2.
I created a test banner, located in ID 3.

Can I call this banner within a post?
What about calling it within a CMS Article?

I place the @vbbanners:3@ yet come up with no banner in the post or Article.

Am I messing up somewhere?
Something I should check?

Thank you very much for your work and your help!! Greatly appreciated!

========
Adding a little bit more:
On the test thread, I placed on a post @vbbanners:5@
Then set the test banner's Position to 5

When I load the test thread, the banner comes up at the very top of the page, before anything else.
It has

 " />

at the end.
In addition, the "Destination URL" is not working (ie: the image is not "clickable" for a jump to the URL)

Messing up somewhere?

The number N in the @vbbanners:N@ placeholder stands for the location. The banner ID is only useful for statistics and for click tracking.

If your test banner with ID 3 is setup at location 0, your placeholder should look like:

@vbbanners:0@

If you post @vbbanners:0@ in a message, a banner will be inserted. This also applies to the CMS and anywhere else. If you preview or edit a post with @vbbanners:0@ however, you have to reinsert the placeholder again before saving.

[blowy]

Good Evening all

I am having a problem with this. Since I have upgraded my VB and Skin this dont work anymore I have all the banners and codes in position 2 but when I enable them they dont display or rotate.

My site is http://uk-betting-tips.co.uk

I have had to install the banner manuely


cheers

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by blowy

Good Evening all

I am having a problem with this. Since I have upgraded my VB and Skin this dont work anymore I have all the banners and codes in position 2 but when I enable them they dont display or rotate.

My site is http://uk-betting-tips.co.uk

I have had to install the banner manuely


cheers

You will have to insert the placeholders into your new style

[blowy]

ah rite ok how do i do that

[y2ksw]

The same way you did in the previous style

[duketxboy]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

The same way you did in the previous style

once again thanks for all your help

[viper357]

Hi, I am running on 3.8.5 and am struggling with a flash banner, I can get it to display correctly, however, as soon as I wrap it so that I can use a URL on the flash banner, the banner loops, the client does not want the banner to loop, the banner must stop after the first animation, but the only way I can get a link to work on the banner is by wrapping it in your code, but then the banner loops, is there any way I can stop the banner from looping? Thanks.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by viper357

Hi, I am running on 3.8.5 and am struggling with a flash banner, I can get it to display correctly, however, as soon as I wrap it so that I can use a URL on the flash banner, the banner loops, the client does not want the banner to loop, the banner must stop after the first animation, but the only way I can get a link to work on the banner is by wrapping it in your code, but then the banner loops, is there any way I can stop the banner from looping? Thanks.

All the flash activity is defined inside. If you have a banner which needs to be corrected externally, the only other whay you have is not using the wrapper at all and paste the whole object/embed code into the "Text" box.

However, train your customers!