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

[tibobdenazareth]

I went back to check all the pages again from page 1 until I got to one of attroll's posts in response to somebody with the same issue as mine. I checked his/her last piece of advice:

5. Check the start and end dates. I always start mine the day before the current date, making it yesterdays date.

And that's where my problem was. My start date auto-generated by the system is a few hours short. So the date has not arrived yet. I changed it to yesterday and BINGO!!!!! Thanks attroll.

Now I can move on to more interesting tweaking stuff. FABULOUS mod.

[Videx]

I wonder if the automatic dates shouldn't just be removed? They do seem more trouble than they're worth, causing ads to disappear with no notice. Or maybe just eliminate the Start date, assuming you wouldn't be entering it if it wasn't to start immediately.

I know our advertisers get very upset if I don't give them lots of notice and attention. Simply stopping their ad on the expiration date is really not an option.

[tibobdenazareth]

While I'm going through the pages.... does anyone have the post number for the solution of having 2 (let's say) 480x150 banners side by side (horizontally)? I used the suggested syntax code in the ad_navbar_below template:

<!--@vbbanners:0@-->&nbsp;<!--@vbbanners:0@-->

It doesn't work. It stacks them up one on top of the other.

[tibobdenazareth]

I went rthrough 141 pages of posts plus the pdf doc from the download ... I still can't find a working code to have 2 rotating banners of small sizes (480x150 e.g.) to be SIDE by SIDE.

Any help somebody who has figured that out? It looks like everybody has been out since yesterday.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Videx

I wonder if the automatic dates shouldn't just be removed? They do seem more trouble than they're worth, causing ads to disappear with no notice. Or maybe just eliminate the Start date, assuming you wouldn't be entering it if it wasn't to start immediately.

I know our advertisers get very upset if I don't give them lots of notice and attention. Simply stopping their ad on the expiration date is really not an option.

I have this already on my list ... actually it is a bug

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by tibobdenazareth

While I'm going through the pages.... does anyone have the post number for the solution of having 2 (let's say) 480x150 banners side by side (horizontally)? I used the suggested syntax code in the ad_navbar_below template:

<!--@vbbanners:0@-->&nbsp;<!--@vbbanners:0@-->

It doesn't work. It stacks them up one on top of the other.

Originally Posted by tibobdenazareth

I went rthrough 141 pages of posts plus the pdf doc from the download ... I still can't find a working code to have 2 rotating banners of small sizes (480x150 e.g.) to be SIDE by SIDE.

Any help somebody who has figured that out? It looks like everybody has been out since yesterday.

How images and banners are chown depends also on your CSS. If the CSS tells that images have to be stacked, they will stack al lot

Have you tried to use a div tag around them?

[tibobdenazareth]

yes, I use the div tag. I figured out the problem.

Based on the size of my available horizontal ad space, the two sizes were adding to more than the horizontal space can contain so it pushes the next one to the next horizontal space right below it. When I adjust the sizes, both fit on the same row (side by side). Thanks.

I just can't figure out how to make banners appear after the first post of every page or after 5, 10 .... posts as described in earlier posts.

I used the "postbit_legacy" code to no avail. Nothing is shown.

I used the ad_showthread_firstpost_sig, ad_showthread_firstpost_start ... NOTHING.

I'm only copying and pasting the codes that others said work on this board. But that doesn't cut it for me. Any help Please?

[tibobdenazareth]

Originally Posted by FrankP

Many thanks to Mystics from vb-germany.com. He gave me the following code for the postbit_legacy and this one is working like a charme:

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread' AND (($post['postcount'] % 15 == 10) OR $post['postcount'] == 10)">
	<div class="thread_controls">
		<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center">
			<!--@vbbanners:3@-->
		</div>
	</div>
<vb:elseif condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread' AND (($post['postcount'] % 15 == 5) OR $post['postcount'] == 5)" />
	<div class="thread_controls">
		<div style="width: 100%; text-align: center">
			<!--@vbbanners:2@-->
		</div>
	</div>
</vb:if>

I copied & pasted it into my postbit_legacy at the bottom. Nothing happened. I placed it at the beginning, nothing happened. Any help? Since you have it working like a charm. Thanks.

[rhody401]

I notice that you are calling banner groups 2 and 3. Do you have content/banners defined in those groups? ie: vbbanners:3 vs vbbanners:0

I have all of mine in group 0 and use the same code here, and it works fine.

This is what I have, to put them every 5th post:

PHP Code:

Styles & Templates -> Style Manager -> edit template ->  postbit templates -> postbit_legacy  

;.....at the VERY END add this:  (puts add after 5th and 10th post)

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread' AND (($post['postcount'] % 15 == 10) OR $post['postcount'] == 10)">
    <div class="thread_controls">
        <div style="width: 100%; text-align: center">
            <!--@vbbanners:0@-->
        </div>
    </div>
<vb:elseif condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread' AND (($post['postcount'] % 15 == 5) OR $post['postcount'] == 5)" />
    <div class="thread_controls">
        <div style="width: 100%; text-align: center">
            <!--@vbbanners:0@-->
        </div>
    </div>
</vb:if> 


[tibobdenazareth]

Thanks rhody. I always used position 0 in the code. I even copied and pasted your code above in the postbit_legacy template at the very end. Noting happened. I already have the banners working fine in the ad_below_navbar.