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

[jnrdavo]

Hi Guys, hoping somebody can help.

Been using this for years, but only have one problem.

I get click though values when I'm running swf files, and this works fine.

However, some of my sponsors only have jpg images. I'm using the following code in the TEXT section:

<a href="yoururl" target="_self"><img src="yourimage.gif" border="0" /></a>

The image shows fine, and also when you click on it, it goes to the desired target page.

However, the Click Counter is not working for these images...

Is there a way to get the counter to work when non swf files? Do I just need to change the html code for the image (and if so, can somebody give me an example)?

I have have the Click Tracking option set to Yes. I've also tried the other options (Flash Banner). This will then increase the counter correctly, but the JPG image does not show (obviously because I don't have the correct wrapper/code).

Really appreciate any help.

[dwerden]

jnrdavo:

I don't use the text box for that type of image/link. I just enter the link into the "URL" box and the image location into the "Image / Flash" box. Then tracking works just fine.

[gobears20]

Quick question, where do I upload this at 'rbs_iframe.php'?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by gobears20

Quick question, where do I upload this at 'rbs_iframe.php'?

"This" what? The file goes at your forum root.

[gobears20]

Thanks

[gobears20]

I am testing this out and I created a Test1 and Test2 banner just for my user group so I am the only one that sees it. My goal is to have these rotate when the page is refreshed. I am looking for it to show Test1, Test2, Test1,Test2...etc when refreshing the page. Its not always doing that. Sometimes it will do things like this, Test1, Test1, Test1, Test2. It could be on my part with how I have it set.

I have both banners set to the same settings...

Max. Impressions With this value you may limit how often banners are shown on your pages: 0

Likelihood Insert here a value between 1 and 100 in order to define the percentage of how likely are banners to view. You may also insert a number higher than 100, in order to give a specific banner a higher weight than normally. You would do this during short lasting promotions, for example.: 100

Am I missing something or should I set those settings different for the two banners I created?

[dwerden]

I see that as well, but it all seems to even out. If you flip a coin 10 times, you don't usually get 5 heads and 5 tails. I think it's something along those lines.

I'm also not sure if browser caching may be involved. Usually I try to click on different links each time to test it.

[goodhunting1]

Hello team,
I would like to use this plugin to display various pictures on the header next to our logo. There is no advertising included, no links or clicking counters, plain and simple, I just want to rotate an X amount of pictures. What I am using right now works fine, just load all the pictures to a specific folder where you load the php files and you are done... however, it does change only on reload and cache can also have a negative impact.
I am reading the instructions but I dont think I get the way this could be implemented on this plugin, can anyone help me? installing the plugin should not be a problem but I havent yet until I can get an idea on how to configure this the way I want it.

Any help will be much appreciated.

[rhody401]

Goodhunting1,

I'm using this for an image up next to the logo, which changes on each refresh. (as well as using it between every 5 posts, and at the top and bottom of pages)

It needs a refresh/page load to bring up another banner, it doesnt just rotate them on a static page. This is by design, and I think the reason has to do with the adsense rules.

In places where I wanted a rotation, I used an animated GIF.

Rhody

[gobears20]

Is there a reason why the clicks are not being tracked? I have this as part of an Adsense set up but clicks are not working but impressions are? I have the check box checked to track clicks. Do I need to click anything else on the settings? Thanks!