Geek Advertising Banner system RC1

HowdA All.

From the makers of Hydrogen comes the latest mack - GAB (Geek Advertising Banners).

This has come about by needing an advertising system that no other hack seemed to totally fulfill. Personally - I really didnt want to burden myself with supporting another hack - but I felt it was significantly better than other hack systems out there so I thought many would be able to benefit from it.

Whats so freaking cool about it?

1- use flash, normal, text based (google adsense) or rotating banners
2- Decide which scripts run the banners
3- Define which forums run the banners
4- define which usergroups can turn off the banners
5- Make ads stop at x amount of hits
6- Make ads stop at x amount of views
7- Make ads start/stop at certain times
8- track views and/or hits
9- Wipes your bum

Why am I releasing this now? It seems to be hip and trendy to release Banner hacks. In all reality - this has been a very long work in progress that is finally rounding the finsihing stages. The current RC pacakge is considered complete except for the show stats segment (its recording stats, but you cant browse them easily yet).

LIke with any hack (especially a Beta) back up you DB and files needing change (global.php,admincp/index.php).

Known issues:

• Flash ads can not appear on same page as a rotating banner ad.
• After installing for the first time, you will most likely need to edit a phrase (any phrase) and click save to rebuild phrases
• Flash banners hide drop down menus!!! Be careful where you put them or dont use them!

Basic install instructions:

• Upload all files to relevant locations
• chmod the gab and gish folders to 777 (or change the owner of the folders to whatever account your PHP process runs under).
• Run the gab_install.php file in your admincp folder.
• Follow the steps.
• On the file changes - pay close attention to see if certain changes couldnt be made. If any changes could not be made, you need to manually make those changes.
• When complete, move changed files from gish/gab/rc1.0 to their respective locations
• Ad a new cron job to run daily (file: GAB_cron_daily.php)
• Edit each gab category to include the forums you want the ads to appear in.
• Ad $GAB_ads[x] to your templates where ever you want ads to appear (x represents the ad number depending on how many ads are set to run on that script. $GAB_ads[0] is the first ad block, $GAB_ads[1] would be the second, etc...)
• Read The Freaking README!!!!!!!

Quick Upgrade instructions

For users of GAB Beta 2, uninstall it and then install this version. In all reality, you could just revert the file changes and delete the GAB_ tables from yur DB (heck, you dont even need to do that).

To upgrade from RC1.5 to RC1.6, just replace existing files with the latest from the downloaded package and run the template portion of the installer (you can skip the rest of the install steps). You may have to revert your GUSH_main and GUSH_ad_row

Donations

I have never asked for donations for any of the macks I have done - however since I have spent well over 60 hours coding this - I thought I would stick my neck out there. If you like my mack, it brings you some money and you want to keep my fridge stocked with beer and Cheetos, then feel free to drop some cash in my paypal account: geek@thenailgeek.com
If youre having difficulty keeping beer in the fridge yourself - fill yours before you fill mine.
If you think the mack sucks, or youre just a tight git then please dont bother

nJoy

[LEAD_WEIGHT]

Does it auto rotates banners and do u need to upload the image to your server or is it one of those Bandwidth stealer Banner system. I would like to know if I need to upload the image cause if I have to then I will install this Mod but if it is a bandwidth stealer thing then no. :ermm:

[She Unlimited]

Can this intergrate well with linkshare for example, where you can just upload or paste your code, and have the a banners rotate?

I would like to be on the mailing list when the new one is released...

sheunlimited@gmail.com

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by She Unlimited

Can this intergrate well with linkshare for example, where you can just upload or paste your code, and have the a banners rotate?

I would like to be on the mailing list when the new one is released...

sheunlimited@gmail.com

lead - not sure what you mean exactly - but yes it does have the option to rotate and yes, you upload the banners (soon your users can upload their own)

She - most liekly not currently - I would need an example of the code that you would want displayed and I could incorporate that as an option too.

[She Unlimited]

Thank you for your quick reply.

Here is the code.

<div align="center"><a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=fByLJzuLIlQ&offerid=51678.10000561&type=4 &subid=0"><IMG width="160" height="600" alt="cyclo160x600" border="0" src="http://1800patches.com/banners/cosmetic/lepatch_160x600_2.gif"></a><IMG border="0" width="1" height="1" src="http://ad.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/show?id=fByLJzuLIlQ&bids=51678.10000561&type=4&sub id=0">
</div>

[ChrisBaktis]

Install seemed to go well but when I copy the new index.php to the admin folder I cannot access the admin page - just get a blank page.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by ChrisBaktis

Install seemed to go well but when I copy the new index.php to the admin folder I cannot access the admin page - just get a blank page.

If you mean the GAb_admin page - then you may have to remve the javascript in the begining of the file - if you mean the navigation pane to the left (with style manager, etc...) is blank - manually double check the file changes.

HTH's

[Snow]

Geek, I've just installed this on my test forum, but something has gone wrong...

1. I'm having mysql errors with the packages and add new packages in the adminCP and in advertising.php. I think it may be because of table prefixes but I'm not sure how to fix it

Database error in vBulletin 3.0.6:

Invalid SQL: SELECT * FROM tvb3_GAB_packages ORDER BY ordinal,title,id ASC
mysql error: Table 'aboho_crashforum.tvb3_GAB_packages' doesn't exist

mysql error number: 1146

2. I can't seem to be able to add any new ads in the adminCP

Warning: copy(./gab/aboho.gif): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /admincp/GAB_admin.php on line 716

3. With the autoinstaller, it couldn't complete step 200 because of a previous modification that your GAS hack had made. The manual file change states this:

 = false;
	// === GAB  ===
	construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_settings'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=settings');
	construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_display_ads'], 'GAB_admin.php');
	construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_add_ad'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=add');
    construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_display_packages'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=displaypackages');
    construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_add_package'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=addpackage');
	construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_display_frequency'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=displayfrequency');
	construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_add_frequency'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=addfrequency');
	construct_nav_option($vbphrase['GAB_test'], 'GAB_admin.php?do=test');
	construct_nav_group($vbphrase['GAB_CP']);
	$printhr = true;
	$printhr = false;
	// === GAB ===
    $printhr = false;
	if (can_administer('canadminstyles'))
	{

Is that = false; supposed to be there?

4.

for the missing phrase in the admincp:
add a phrase in the Control Panel Global section called 'GAB_add_ad' the value should be 'New Ad'

I found this phrase in Control Panel Stop Message Phrases. Since I've now added it to Global phrases, would it be safe to remove the original phrase from Control Panel Stop messages or is it a different phrase that is needed?

[The Geek]

Hey snow.

The package side of things is not really implimented yet so just dont bother to use it (I would recommend ditching the advertising.php too.) I was hoping to get the next version out before I head off for a few days but it isnt possible. In the meantime the rest of the system (ads) will work perfectly fine.

Remove the =false
Dont know what happened there ?

Make sure you have a folder called gab chmod to 0777 in your forums folder

You can remove the Control Panel Stop message - what happened is I stuck that phrase in the wrong area

Gotta love a beta

Remember though - the ad side of things should be perfectly cool.

nJoy

[Snow]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Hey snow.

The package side of things is not really implimented yet so just dont bother to use it (I would recommend ditching the advertising.php too.) I was hoping to get the next version out before I head off for a few days but it isnt possible. In the meantime the rest of the system (ads) will work perfectly fine.

Remove the =false
Dont know what happened there ?

Make sure you have a folder called gab chmod to 0777 in your forums folder

You can remove the Control Panel Stop message - what happened is I stuck that phrase in the wrong area

Gotta love a beta

Remember though - the ad side of things should be perfectly cool.

nJoy

AWESOME! Thanks! :banana: :banana:

Issues 2 (I was missing the gab folder ), 3 and 4 fixed. I can't wait for the packages side to be finished... it looks like it's going to be another winner hack.

I've got another minor bug issue though..... In options > Record number of times shown? and in Ads > Track views .... I keep selecting YES and it keeps switching back to NO when I save

[Snow]

I was just wondering..... how easy would it be to integrate your autolinker hack with this hack in an intellitext sort of way of advertising? Would that be possible?