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]

Love the mod, and have been using it on 5 sites for about a year now....

I've been modding the swf files I have and redirecting them to a php file so I could log additional information.

$Usr= $_SERVER['remote_user'];

$CallingServer = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$UserID = $_COOKIE['bbuserid'];

chdir('/home/sitename/public_html/redirects');

$con = mysql_connect("localhost","sitelogin","sitepasswor d");
if (!$con)
{
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}

mysql_select_db("site_forum", $con);


// Get IP Address of remote address

// $ip=@$REMOTE_ADDR;
$ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

// Update values that are required
$sql="INSERT INTO page_hits (i_date, i_time, ip_address, calling_site, calling_ad, UserName)
VALUES
(now(),curtime(),'$ip','$CallingServer','Sponsor - General','$UserID')";

Would it be possible to add some further details in to this mod so that we can record the following:

calling sitename
IP address of user who click on the ad
Date
Time
username (if they have a login)

If so, then I reckon we would have an excellet tool and be able to produce some meaning full stats that could help people taget their advertising.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by jnrdavo

Love the mod, and have been using it on 5 sites for about a year now....

I've been modding the swf files I have and redirecting them to a php file so I could log additional information.

$Usr= $_SERVER['remote_user'];

$CallingServer = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$UserID = $_COOKIE['bbuserid'];

chdir('/home/sitename/public_html/redirects');

$con = mysql_connect("localhost","sitelogin","sitepasswor d");
if (!$con)
{
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}

mysql_select_db("site_forum", $con);


// Get IP Address of remote address

// $ip=@$REMOTE_ADDR;
$ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

// Update values that are required
$sql="INSERT INTO page_hits (i_date, i_time, ip_address, calling_site, calling_ad, UserName)
VALUES
(now(),curtime(),'$ip','$CallingServer','Sponsor - General','$UserID')";

Would it be possible to add some further details in to this mod so that we can record the following:

calling sitename
IP address of user who click on the ad
Date
Time
username (if they have a login)

If so, then I reckon we would have an excellet tool and be able to produce some meaning full stats that could help people taget their advertising.

I put this on schedule for the next revision. It is a reasonable addition, although some data can't be tracked as 100% reliable, such as "the user who clicked", because it may depend on specific cookie settings to make this information available. Also, some proxies may show an IP of 127.0.0.1, which then would look like as if your server had clicked the ad

Along this addition, I'll also add an optional and complete banner impression trace, which will allow to see at least, who is viewing the banners in general. However, I will not add any statistics at this point, which have to be studied a bit beforehand.

For all those users who would like statistics, please tell what you need, including what you would like to show (directly) to your sponsors/customers.

[fridaypassion]

Originally Posted by djbaxter

Admin CP > Advertising > Add New Ad > Ad Selector > Global: Below Navbar

or

Styles & templates > Style manager > Ad Location Templates > ad_global_below_navbar

I'm more confused now! do you also need to change a setting in the rotating banner system section as well? I've added the ad location but the new location doesn't appear in the rotating ad system only the usual horizontal position 1 etc.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by fridaypassion

I'm more confused now! do you also need to change a setting in the rotating banner system section as well? I've added the ad location but the new location doesn't appear in the rotating ad system only the usual horizontal position 1 etc.

Please read the included guide and eventually have a look at the Flash Guide as indicated in the first post of this thread.

You need to make changes to your templates and insert banners in the database in order to show banners. The way you do it, is easy and straight forward. There are no such fixed locations as the inbuilt vBulletin locations, but you may use them if you wish.

[DieselTruck]

Call me stupid, but I cannot get a banner to display.

I have tried <!--@vbbanners:0@--> in all the ad hook locations, none will show. I get this when adding to the header location. See attachment.

As you can see, it just shows the code.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by DieselTruck

Call me stupid, but I cannot get a banner to display.

I have tried <!--@vbbanners:0@--> in all the ad hook locations, none will show. I get this when adding to the header location. See attachment.

As you can see, it just shows the code.

Could you please just try the template called "ad_navbar_below" with:

<div align="center"><!--@vbbanners:0@--></div>

and enable one of the default banners. You should get a banner between the navbar (menu) and the forum contents, similar to:

Attachment 123395

[y2ksw]

PS: if it still shows the code, check also the options. It should look like:

Attachment 123396

[DieselTruck]

So, I've been playing with it all evening and I'm down to this "x" where the ad should be (See attachment).

I can successfully see the the banner in the browser address bar with the URL the same as I put in the URL Field.
If I click the image placeholder it takes me to the banner successfully.

[DieselTruck]

Any ideas?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by DieselTruck

Any ideas?

Oh, I thought you solved the problem ... so what?

You say you click the placeholder, then you go to the banner? You mean your banner shows on a single page and nothing else? Sounds like you target your banner.

Maybe you have put the image URL into the target field. Please check this first. If this isn't the problem, ... maybe you better reinstall and use the default banners for a start. I have the strong idea we miss something