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

[Videx]

Originally Posted by attroll

I found my problem and it is working now. Than you all for the help.

For the benefit of future searchers, you really should try to explain the problem and the solution as best you can.

[attroll]

Originally Posted by Videx

For the benefit of future searchers, you really should try to explain the problem and the solution as best you can.

Yes, you are right and I mean to do that.

My problem with having double banners existed because I had the code posted in two templates. I had it in both the "ad_navbar_below" and "ad_global_below_navbar".

[CruiserCommando]

I'm sorry, I must be missing something in the set-up instructions. how is it that I get this ad banner to show up? I have it uploaded and I have it appearing in my AdminCP, but there is nothing showing up on my forum. I inserted the <div @vbbanners:0@ /div> code into my ad_navbar_below template, but all it shows is @vbbanners:0@ Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

- B

[mdreamer]

Hi,

First of all - Giovanni, thank you for this mod - its really good!

I've search this thread for ab answer and couldn't find it... When i have a flash ad that its click-able with a URL inside the SWF, how can i make it work? its working only when i use the URL destination of the MOD inside the banner management area.

Thanks
Maayan

[BadgerDog]

Has anyone else had problems with where footer ads used by is mod, actually end up at the top of the forums?

It works fine in Firefox, but Safari users are complaining that the ad ends up over top of the content at the top of vbCMS article pages.

Thanks for any feedback.

Regards,
Doug

[Videx]

Originally Posted by CruiserCommando

I inserted the <div @vbbanners:0@ /div> code into my ad_navbar_below template, but all it shows is @vbbanners:0@

I do not believe that is the proper placeholder. Why do you have "div" in there? If you want to center it you need a div: "<div align="center"><!--@vbbanners:0@--></div>". You may need to read the manual again.

Originally Posted by BadgerDog

It works fine in Firefox, but Safari users are complaining that the ad ends up over top of the content at the top of vbCMS article pages.

Working fine on my forum with Safari. Have you tried it yourself (don't type that you don't have Safari - it will take less time to just install it and try it yourself)? Link?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by CruiserCommando

I'm sorry, I must be missing something in the set-up instructions. how is it that I get this ad banner to show up? I have it uploaded and I have it appearing in my AdminCP, but there is nothing showing up on my forum. I inserted the <div @vbbanners:0@ /div> code into my ad_navbar_below template, but all it shows is @vbbanners:0@ Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks


- B

You probably need also to change the Options to @vbbanners:%d@. the default placeholder is <!--@vbbanners:%d@-->, so if you have not changed the options, you will have to use <!--@vbbanners:0@--> in your templates instead of @vbbanners:0@

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by mdreamer

Hi,

First of all - Giovanni, thank you for this mod - its really good!

I've search this thread for ab answer and couldn't find it... When i have a flash ad that its click-able with a URL inside the SWF, how can i make it work? its working only when i use the URL destination of the MOD inside the banner management area.

Thanks
Maayan

If your flash has already the right link, then you fill the Text field with the HTML which shows your banner and leave the other fields empty. In the case you have a Flash banner which internal URL is missing, erroneous or where you may want to track clicking, you would use the Flash wrapper, which embeds the flash file and ignores thus the internal URL, using yours instead.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by BadgerDog

Has anyone else had problems with where footer ads used by is mod, actually end up at the top of the forums?

It works fine in Firefox, but Safari users are complaining that the ad ends up over top of the content at the top of vbCMS article pages.

Thanks for any feedback.

Regards,
Doug

I have no idea how you may make this happen ... unless a style definition with absolute position ...

In any case it's a style problem

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by Videx

I do not believe that is the proper placeholder. Why do you have "div" in there? If you want to center it you need a div: "<div align="center"><!--@vbbanners:0@--></div>". You may need to read the manual again.

Working fine on my forum with Safari. Have you tried it yourself (don't type that you don't have Safari - it will take less time to just install it and try it yourself)? Link?

Originally Posted by y2ksw

I have no idea how you may make this happen ... unless a style definition with absolute position ...

In any case it's a style problem

Ok, here's a screen capture of vbCMS article in Safari 5.05 (latest version) using a MacBook Pro running OSX. Note advert is placed over top of screen content at the top of forum instead of the bottom. (see pic on the left below)

Same screen of same vbCMS article on same machine using Firefox 5.0 places banner from this mod at bottom in footer. (see pic on the right below)

I don't understand where to look to fix it, given in works in one browser and not the other.

Note: does not happen on forum home screens or other screens, just vbCMS ..

Any help would be appreciated ...

Regards,
Doug

.... Safari ....................... FireFox