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 dweber

I would like to add a place holder into a static HTML Widget box on the "Front Page" but am a newbie.

Could anyone give me a sample line of HTML code to insert the placeholder (@vbanners@) into?

Thanks in advance.

As in the help files

<!--@vbbanners:0-->
<!--@vbbanners:1-->
<!--@vbbanners:2-->
...
<!--@vbbanners:9-->

[dadams982]

Originally Posted by dadams982

I watched your video and this seem quite easy. Anyone know where to edit a template to put a place holder to place two of them side by side between forum topics on forumhome?

Hope that made sense.

Can anybody lend a hand? Am I supposed to define two banners 1-2? or just one? And where would I put this to make this work?

[dadams982]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

At the location where you want them to appear, try something like this:

<span align="center">
<!--@vbbanners:0@-->&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<!--@vbbanners:1@-->
</span>

assuming that you have set up banner 0 and banner 1 as the correct dimensions.

I haven't tryied to do this, mind you, partly because I upgraded to 4.02 and this add-on isn't yet upgraded for 4.02, but it's worth a try.

Definitley going to try this dj, do you know where to insert this to show up side by side between forums on the forumhome? Also, can I set more than two banners to rotate if I only use the 2 defined? A good representation of what I am trying to accomplish is on anabolicminds.com on forumhome

[TruthElixirX]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

At line 57 in rbs_banner.php, you may comment out the if statement. In this case, the referers are not checked against the forum URL, and clicks should be counted. However, this opens a door to click fraud.

Worked! Thanks!

[shahryar_neo]

how can show banners between every X post ? for example set these :

1) show after last and first post of topic.
2) between posts .

I used vB 4 Advertisement management and I shifted to this mod and it's so better but cannot customize well for between posts .

[66tiger]

I have this installed on vB4.0.2 PL4 and I can get it to work in some places but not in others.

It seems to work correctly on the index page, but it doesn't work inside the forums.

For example, I added <!--@vbbanners:2@--> to the ad_global_header2 template, then set up a banner which I set to Position 2, and set it to display in all forums (nothing selected in the list of forums). The URL for the image is valid; I can enter it directly into my browser and it will display.

I can see the banner on the index page, but if I go to any forum it isn't shown. Can anyone help me to understand why it doesn't work as I expect it to?

[y2ksw]

Maybe ad_global_header2 isn't implemented in all templates, such as FORUMDISPLAY. There were or still are a few bugs reported regarding the banners in the header area.

If the "Forum Home" option is checked, it will show only there though.

[66tiger]

D'oh! The Forum Home setting was it. Thanks!

[y2ksw]

At least I got it right once

[acekillerboy]

i use CMPS how can i make that banners to appear only in CMPS portal and nowhere else on forum ? Thanks