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

[steve71]

4.0.2

Which rbs version should I have...currently running 2.21

Are there any template edits necessary for a fresh install? (I had this working fine in 3.8 but reverted all templates)

[Videx]

Originally Posted by steve71

but the google test banner is not showing.

FWIW I have never seen the google banners, and I'm not completely sure why. I remember an old banner mod (I think?) specifically excluded Admins because of the google TOS. Anyway, I can see them if I use my regular member login.

[steve71]

Originally Posted by Videx

FWIW I have never seen the google banners, and I'm not completely sure why. I remember an old banner mod (I think?) specifically excluded Admins because of the google TOS. Anyway, I can see them if I use my regular member login.

I have tried with some custom banners as well with no success. I think (if I have the right version) it has something to do with <!--@vbbanners:%d@--> because I recall having this issue before.

Originally Posted by steve71

4.0.2

Which rbs version should I have...currently running 2.21

Are there any template edits necessary for a fresh install? (I had this working fine in 3.8 but reverted all templates)

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

This needs to be updated for vBulletin 4.02. While it will still work in the forum, it breaks the CMS.

See http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...o-4.02-upgrade

Originally Posted by meissenation

Throws an error code in VB 4.0.2:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function rbs_url_sanity() in \includes\functions.php(6783) : eval()'d code on line 108

Line 6783 is the call to the global_complete template hook.

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Yes. See my post above. In my case, I didn't see the error message initially because it was being suppressed by vBSEO - it appeared when I disabled vBSEO temporarily in my search for the blank CMS problem.

Originally Posted by steve71

4.0.2

Which rbs version should I have...currently running 2.21

Are there any template edits necessary for a fresh install? (I had this working fine in 3.8 but reverted all templates)

Version 2.24 worked in 4.01 but this add-on currently isn't working correctly in 4.02.

[jbizzle]

For some reason I cannot get this to show up on my forum, any help? I added "<!--@vbbanners:%0@-->" but nothing comes up..

[LCN2007]

does this mod auto template and locations?

[LCN2007]

I am having the hardest time installing the locations.

Im trying to install the hooks at the same locations of the vb admanager locations.

can anyone help?

[HappyFeet]

Originally Posted by LCN2007

I am having the hardest time installing the locations.

Im trying to install the hooks at the same locations of the vb admanager locations.

can anyone help?

Here is what I did... I'm using this mod thru the existing vB ad system.

I add banners to say "position 0" and then go to the vB manage ads section. For my under navbar ad, I simply put <center><!--@vbbanners:0@--></center> in the box.

Ads put in "position 2" , I want above footer. So I go to manage ads > above footer and I put this <center><!--@vbbanners:2@--></center> in the box. Etc, etc...

The ads I put in the rotating banner system work perfectly through the vB ad system. That is until 4.0.2, it crashed my CMS so I had to disable it. I'm waiting for an update to fix it so I can enable it again.

Hope this helps...


Phillip

[LCN2007]

Originally Posted by HappyFeet

Here is what I did... I'm using this mod thru the existing vB ad system.

I add banners to say "position 0" and then go to the vB manage ads section. For my under navbar ad, I simply put <center><!--@vbbanners:0@--></center> in the box.

Ads put in "position 2" , I want above footer. So I go to manage ads > above footer and I put this <center><!--@vbbanners:2@--></center> in the box. Etc, etc...

The ads I put in the rotating banner system work perfectly through the vB ad system. That is until 4.0.2, it crashed my CMS so I had to disable it. I'm waiting for an update to fix it so I can enable it again.

Hope this helps...


Phillip

this is exactly what i needed thank you.

You say that it doesn't work on 4.0.2?

ill test asap and see how it goes thank you again

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by LCN2007

You say that it doesn't work on 4.0.2?

Sad but true. It generates error messages and effectively nulls the CMS.