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

[kiawah75]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

1. right
2. you will need to insert a placeholder in your templates, e.g. open ad_navbar_below, and insert: <div align="center"><!--@vbbanners:0@--></div><br /> in order to show all banners which belong to position 0.
3. You are fine with the latest version.

I have two banners that I would like to place in rotation. I have placed them in position "0" in the ad_navbar_below section of the website. When I activate both of them they both show up at once rather than rotating them. I tried adding another <!--@vbbanners:0@--> in the style sheet based upon some other posts and that does not seem to work. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am using 4.02 Patch 1. Thanks.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by kiawah75

I have two banners that I would like to place in rotation. I have placed them in position "0" in the ad_navbar_below section of the website. When I activate both of them they both show up at once rather than rotating them. I tried adding another <!--@vbbanners:0@--> in the style sheet based upon some other posts and that does not seem to work. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am using 4.02 Patch 1. Thanks.

If you have only 2 banners in your database, of course they will never rotate, if you also show them both on a page

In order to make banners rotate, you should have more banners (with the same criteria) in your database than the highest number of banners you ever will show on a single page, unless you accept that in certain moments or pages no rotating is fine.

This product chooses from a number of banners, which fit the rules to show up, shuffles and then picks one for each placeholder. Thus, if there are 2 banners and 2 placeholders, all of them are shown.

[kiawah75]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

If you have only 2 banners in your database, of course they will never rotate, if you also show them both on a page

In order to make banners rotate, you should have more banners (with the same criteria) in your database than the highest number of banners you ever will show on a single page, unless you accept that in certain moments or pages no rotating is fine.

This product chooses from a number of banners, which fit the rules to show up, shuffles and then picks one for each placeholder. Thus, if there are 2 banners and 2 placeholders, all of them are shown.

Sorry in advance for the follow up question - I am sure I am missing the obvious. I want to have two different banners rotate in the same location and have them each show up 50% of the time - is that not possible? For example each time the page is refreshed the new banner would show up. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Videx]

Originally Posted by kiawah75

I want to have two different banners rotate in the same location and have them each show up 50% of the time - is that not possible?

Yes, that is what this mod does by default. Stop messing with it and that's what will happen.

Note that at least one other mod (chatbox) cuts off the 'navbar below' ad location.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by kiawah75

Sorry in advance for the follow up question - I am sure I am missing the obvious. I want to have two different banners rotate in the same location and have them each show up 50% of the time - is that not possible? For example each time the page is refreshed the new banner would show up. Thanks in advance for your help.

Just use 1 placeholder on your pages and the 2 banners in your database will alternate each other with about 50% of the time.

While I am at it, if you have for example 1 unique banner and 2 identical banners in your database, you may move the weight to one side. The unique banner will get 33% and the other two 66%, which looks like, as if one banner appears more often.

[kiawah75]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

Just use 1 placeholder on your pages and the 2 banners in your database will alternate each other with about 50% of the time.

While I am at it, if you have for example 1 unique banner and 2 identical banners in your database, you may move the weight to one side. The unique banner will get 33% and the other two 66%, which looks like, as if one banner appears more often.

Thanks for your help, I am still having the problem. I am going to reinstall the mod and hopefully that will clear up the problem.

[rEd86]

Greetings.

It would appear that only users that are primary users of the "Administrators" group have access to this tool. Users that are in the Administrators group, but as an "Additional Usergroups" don't have access. Is this a bug or a feature?

Thanks!

--Ed

[HRCHOSTING]

Banner not showing on content.php page (main cms page)

Have I dont something wrong on the install or is this feature not available?

[dadams982]

I watched your video and this seem quite easy. Anyone know where to edit a template to put a place holder to place two of them side by side between forum topics on forumhome?

Hope that made sense.

[Overbr]

Hello ! Thanks your help-me ! (sorry my englhish OK)

Look, this, i?m inserting in POSTBIT_LEGACY an the codig.

<vb:if condition="$post[postcount] % $vboptions[maxposts] == 1">
<div class="postbit">
<h3 class="posthead">&nbsp; &nbsp;Publicidade</h3>
<div class="postbody"><br />
</div>
<!--@vbbanners:0@-->
<br />
<br />
</div>
</vb:if>

but when done this way he does not show the banners. Please, if you forgot to do some procedure? I'm sorry if already been answered in almost 50 pages.
I read up to 40 and could not do anything that would help me.
I use VB 4.0.2 OK.
Thanks in advance for any help and tip possible. I really need to make this mod work