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

[MySaltyreef]

awesome

[drdoc]

please post video explaining this banner system so that everyone can learn how to upload files...if already video was posted please let me know link. thanks

[bzcomputers]

Originally Posted by dr.reddy

please post video explaining this banner system so that everyone can learn how to upload files...if already video was posted please let me know link. thanks

I assume when referring to "upload files" you are asking about "How to install this modification?"

It is just like every other modification install you will come across...

1) Download the latest version of the modification.

In this instance it is 2.4.2.rbs.zip

2) Unzip modification.

3) Upload files to their respective directories.

In general this is the same for almost every vBulletin modification:
a) All files within the "upload" directory are uploaded as if upload = your forum directory.
b) product-xxxxxxx.xml are always imported (this is usually shown as a single file outside of the upload directory). This is done through "Manage Products" under Plugins & Products in the vbulletin admincp.

If you want further details or a video, google "vbulletin modification install", there are plenty of other references already out there.

[s_cocis]

it's possible generate more than 10 position ?

[New Joe]

Setting this up for the vb sidebar.
I have one block in the sidebar with say 6 clickable banners.
My co admin who does the banners wrote me this::

I see problems with ID (

PHP Code:

<!--@vbbanners:%d@--> 


) and multiple ads on one ID-place as all ads might have different re-directs.

I think he means as I said, we have one main block within the sidebar with around 6 banners in it, each one goes to a different url when clicked, we need to have each one tracked separately.

Any ideas?

[bazookajoe]

I just upgraded from vb3.8 to vb4.2.1 and the rotating banner mod is not working. Is this mod compatible with the vb4 advertising system? I much prefer using this than the built in banner ad system.
Suggestions?

[Forensic]

Originally Posted by bazookajoe

I just upgraded from vb3.8 to vb4.2.1 and the rotating banner mod is not working. Is this mod compatible with the vb4 advertising system? I much prefer using this than the built in banner ad system.
Suggestions?

Lots of people using 4.2.x in here. I am still on 4.2.1 myself.
did you add

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

to the vb advertising in admincp?
Have you disabled all other plugins first?
Can't make many suggestions without more details.

[bazookajoe]

Originally Posted by Forensic

Lots of people using 4.2.x in here. I am still on 4.2.1 myself.
did you add

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

to the vb advertising in admincp?
Have you disabled all other plugins first?
Can't make many suggestions without more details.

Thanks for the quick reply! I didnt add that code...whats that supposed to do?

I haven't disabled any banner or advertising plugins as there aren't any except for the vb4 (with suite) advertising.

[Forensic]

Two questions,
Can I display a single banner from within a large group of banners using the banner Id?
Is there a way to display a single group of banners in forum home and selective forums without maintaining redundant groups of banners?

I have our banners set to show everywhere. I can't use the Forums selection as it removes it from forum home and I can't select forum home because it removes it from forums.

If I can show a single banner I believe I can use an IF/Else statement to show a single banner for a forum id otherwise show the rotation.

[Forensic]

Originally Posted by bazookajoe

Thanks for the quick reply! I didnt add that code...whats that supposed to do?

I haven't disabled any banner or advertising plugins as there aren't any except for the vb4 (with suite) advertising.

That code tells vb to display one random banner from the 'Position 0 Banner List' that you have setup in the Rotating Banner System.
Under AdminCP - Rotating Banner System - Make sure you have an ad setup in Position 0 Banner List, that its active and not expired. Also make sure the url to your image/banner is valid. If not, nothing will appear and you will not know if RBS is working or not.

Make sure the ad is setup.
AdminCP - Advertising - Manage Ads should have a sample 'RBS 0 Below NavBar' ad setup. Click it, select below nav bar. Create a new ad if you don't see one already there. In the ad HTML section enter

PHP Code:

<!--@vbbanners:0@--> 


You can align it later after its working.
Make sure its active and uncheck any options below until you know the ad works.