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 godoveryou

Hey,

I'm not going to waste a lot of time here...

Let's just say you run a forum that is prone to attracting a lot of hackers, crackers, etc... Do you have a patched file that won't produce the all-too-common to not be addressed error:



If not, fine. If so that would be great.

I can't see the point why this message would be a problem of being attractive to hackers. If you like hacking, it should not be a problem to remove the part of installation code from the XML file (see code installation tags). But after all, then you may install half of the product and enjoy driving us mad with problems not coming from the product itself

[godoveryou]

I think you completely misunderstood that. Thanks anyways... I think?

[Videx]

Originally Posted by godoveryou

I think you completely misunderstood that. Thanks anyways... I think?

I know I couldn't figure out what you were asking, so I was surprised he took a crack at it. You might want to rephrase the question. And be sure to search the thread for the answer first because it's probably already been asked and answered.

[rhody401]

My interpretation is that the original poster was being snarky/demanding because they didn't follow the instructions and received an error that some installation files were missing

Hopefully I misunderstood it, too!

The product works exactly as it should, with a clean install and current version(s). There could be a conflict with something else you installed, i suppose.

[delta88]

Can you use multiple position/placeholders for a banner, without making a banner for each position separately?

Using the same placeholder would not work as I could not limit the banner in additional positions

[leftwich86]

I have an issue.

http://realsportslounge.com

How come they are opening in a new window? Any help?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by leftwich86

I have an issue.

http://realsportslounge.com

How come they are opening in a new window? Any help?

Banners open in a separate window, because in the options the target is set to "_blank" by default. If you leave this field empty, banners will open to the current page.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by delta88

Can you use multiple position/placeholders for a banner, without making a banner for each position separately?

Using the same placeholder would not work as I could not limit the banner in additional positions

There is no such function and never will, because the single banner/location combination is used to rotate banners, and guarantees also no single banner is ever shown more than once in the same page (unless duplicated for the same location).

[godoveryou]

Originally Posted by rhody401

My interpretation is that the original poster was being snarky/demanding because they didn't follow the instructions and received an error that some installation files were missing

Hopefully I misunderstood it, too!

The product works exactly as it should, with a clean install and current version(s). There could be a conflict with something else you installed, i suppose.

Yes, you misunderstood it. No harm, no foul on this end. On your end... well I can't help that Just know that it wasn't intended to be snarky/cocky/arrogant/etc...

It's a matter of my forum has exploit attacks several times a hour, every hour. Changing permissions is NOT an option, which solves the problem for just about everyone else. I was looking for a file set that didn't require us changing certain requirements set by our server security administrator, such as those permission requirements.

That's all, wasn't trying to pee in anyone's cheerio's.... Sorry if it was taken that way.

FWIW, I'm definitely not the technically minded behind our forum... I'm just the guy that pays the bills

All forgiven? If not, well... I really did try I'm being sincere when I say the original post and this post are meant with only the best possible intent.

[Videx]

So, a non-technical explanation: It's highly unlikely that those hourly attacks are anything more than bots trying to find an easy way in. Don't worry - as long as you keep vb and the server updated they really aren't too much of a worry.

I don't think "check your access rights" is the same as saying "set all your file permissions to allow yourself to be hacked". In general, vb files should all be 644 and directories 755.

I missed the part where you explained what error(s) you're getting, and where you gave us a link and test login (if required) to look at things. Have you already simply asked your tech people (your host's tech support?)? It's very common for them to set security in such a way that you can't run your own files. When that happens they can set exceptions. If you ask them nicely.