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

[lapiervb]

Can this be set so only certain usergroups can view the banners?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by lapiervb

Can this be set so only certain usergroups can view the banners?

Yes, every banner has a field where to specify the usergroup id's as a comma-separated list.

[JourneyDeep]

I can't get this to work in 3.6.7 PL1. Everything shows up in admincp - I have rbs options, but nothing appears in the forums. How much do you charge to fix this in my forum?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by JourneyDeep

I can't get this to work in 3.6.7 PL1. Everything shows up in admincp - I have rbs options, but nothing appears in the forums. How much do you charge to fix this in my forum?

nothing, but I take my time

[JourneyDeep]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

nothing, but I take my time

I have no problem with that! What are your requirements for access and such.

[Forensic]

I have a couple banners that are supposed to show only in a specific location. Easy enough using the Forums section to specify where to show them.

What I can't figure out is, how do I keep other banners from showing in those forums while still allowing them in the forum home?

Is the correct method to create a separate group for forum home or am I just misunderstanding a setting?

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Forensic

I have a couple banners that are supposed to show only in a specific location. Easy enough using the Forums section to specify where to show them.

What I can't figure out is, how do I keep other banners from showing in those forums while still allowing them in the forum home?

Is the correct method to create a separate group for forum home or am I just misunderstanding a setting?

If you have specific settings to a banner you will have to create a copy (use duplicate) in order to have additional rules.

A banner which shows in specific sections and in home needs thus 2 copies.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by JourneyDeep

I have no problem with that! What are your requirements for access and such.

If you feel ready, please send me the URL and credentials via PM. I need to access the settings, styles and maintenance area in order to verify and setup one of the banners.

[JourneyDeep]

YGPM

[tibobdenazareth]

y2ksw, thanks for the wonderful mod. The best thing is the fact that you're very active on the board to help people.

I'm using vb4.2. I uploaded all the files in their proper locations. Installed the program, picked and edicted one of the default banners (by adding the URL and the image info). I followed everything religiously after having read pages upon pages of issues and replies here. My problem is ... NOTHING shows up.

Because I already have google adsense active, I increased the size of the banner to be larger than the google adsense box at the horizontal 0 position. Nothing showed.

I then changed everything to position 1, disabling all banner defaults and leaving just the one to which I attached the image. I changed the position to 1 (vertical), went to ad_navbar_below and tried everything that was suggested on this board. Nothing showed.

On the Options menu, whether I left the Nth placeholder as <!--@vbbanners:%d@--> or <!--@vbbanners:1@-->, nothing happened.

I'm really at the end of my rope at this point.

I already have google adsense working fine, so I don't want to touch it. I want to be able to stack my new rotating banners under it... or vertically (if that will ever work). But first, I need to be able to have it to SHOW something. PLEASE HELP and thanks.