Add "Sponsored by" banners to your forum categories

Works with vBulletin v2.2.0!

This hack will allow you to add banners to your categories row (like done on SitePointForum.com - use that as a demo ).
You can add / remove sponsors for any category that exists and also on creation (of category) time.
You can specify the name, banner url and the sponsor's site.
Currently it only supports categories from level 1, and only on forum index. -if you want more please tell and I'll see what I can do.
Umm, that's it I think. Installation is fairly easy (and the hack itself didn't take too much time ), so you shouldn't have any problems.

Feedback from any kind is very appreciated!

First of all, run the following query

ALTER TABLE forum ADD sponsorname VARCHAR(100) not null AFTER cancontainthreads, ADD sponsorimg VARCHAR(100) not null AFTER sponsorname, ADD sponsorurl VARCHAR(255) not null AFTER sponsorimg

For more info about running queries take a look here or here.

Add a custom template, name it forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost_sponsor and put the following in it:

<tr id="cat">
	<td bgcolor="{categorybackcolor}" colspan="2"><a href="forumdisplay.php?s=$session[sessionhash]&forumid=$forum[forumid]"><normalfont color="{categoryfontcolor}"><b>$forum[title]</b></normalfont></a>
	<br><smallfont color="{categoryfontcolor}">$forum[description]</smallfont></td>
	<td bgcolor="{categorybackcolor}" colspan="4"><a href="$forum[sponsorurl]" target="_blank"><img src="{imagesfolder}/$forum[sponsorimg]" border="0" alt="Proudly sponsored by $forum[sponsorname]"></a></td>
</tr>

(You can tweak this for your tables. Playing around with the colspans should be enough though. This is for the default table structure)

In forum.php (under your admin folder) add

PHP Code:

  maketableheader("Sponsors</b> <i>Only supported by categories</i>","",0);

  makeinputcode("Sponsor name","sponsorname");
  makeinputcode("Sponsor banner file<br>(your default images folder is added, no need in that)","sponsorimg");
  makeinputcode("Sponsor full URL","sponsorurl"); 


right after

PHP Code:

  makeyesnocode("Count posts made in this forum towards user post counts?","countposts",1); 


(around line 121)

Still in forum.php, replace

PHP Code:

  $DB_site->query("INSERT INTO forum
                      (forumid,styleid,title,description,active,displayorder,parentid,
                       parentlist,allowposting,cancontainthreads,daysprune,newpostemail,newthreademail,
                       moderatenew,allowhtml,allowbbcode,allowimages,allowsmilies,allowicons,
                       styleoverride,allowratings,countposts,moderateattach)
                   VALUES
                      (NULL,'$styleset','".addslashes($title)."','".addslashes($description)."','$isactive','$displayorder','$parentid',
                       '','$allowposting','$cancontainthreads','$daysprune','".addslashes($newpostemail)."','".addslashes($newthreademail)."',
                       '$moderatenew','$aallowhtmlcode','$aallowbbcode','$aallowimgcode','$aallowsmilies','$aallowicons',
                       '$styleoverride','$allowratings','$countposts','$moderateattach')"); 


with

PHP Code:

  $DB_site->query("INSERT INTO forum
                      (forumid,styleid,title,description,active,displayorder,parentid,
                       parentlist,allowposting,cancontainthreads,sponsorname,sponsorimg,
                       sponsorurl,daysprune,newpostemail,newthreademail,
                       moderatenew,allowhtml,allowbbcode,allowimages,allowsmilies,allowicons,
                       styleoverride,allowratings,countposts,moderateattach)
                   VALUES
                      (NULL,'$styleset','".addslashes($title)."','".addslashes($description)."','$isactive','$displayorder','$parentid',
                       '','$allowposting','$cancontainthreads','".addslashes($sponsorname)."','".addslashes($sponsorimg)."',
                       '".addslashes($sponsorurl)."','$daysprune','".addslashes($newpostemail)."','".addslashes($newthreademail)."',
                       '$moderatenew','$aallowhtmlcode','$aallowbbcode','$aallowimgcode','$aallowsmilies','$aallowicons',
                       '$styleoverride','$allowratings','$countposts','$moderateattach')"); 


(around lines 136-147)

Still in forum.php, add

PHP Code:

  maketableheader("Sponsors</b> <i>Only supported by categories</i>","",0);

  makeinputcode("Sponsor name","sponsorname",$forum[sponsorname]);
  makeinputcode("Sponsor banner file<br>(your default images folder is added, no need in that)","sponsorimg",$forum[sponsorimg]);
  makeinputcode("Sponsor full URL","sponsorurl",$forum[sponsorurl]); 


right after

PHP Code:

  makeyesnocode("Count posts made in this forum towards user post counts?","countposts",$forum[countposts]); 


(around line 230)

Still in forum.php, replace

PHP Code:

  $DB_site->query("UPDATE forum
                   SET
                     styleid='$styleset', title='".addslashes($title)."', description='".addslashes($description)."',
                     active='$isactive', displayorder='$displayorder', parentid='$parentid', parentlist=$parentlist,
                     allowposting='$allowposting', cancontainthreads='$cancontainthreads', daysprune='$daysprune',
                     newpostemail='".addslashes($newpostemail)."', newthreademail='".addslashes($newthreademail)."',
                     moderatenew='$moderatenew', allowhtml='$aallowhtmlcode', allowbbcode='$aallowbbcode',
                     allowimages='$aallowimgcode', allowsmilies='$aallowsmilies', allowicons='$aallowicons',
                     styleoverride='$styleoverride', allowratings='$allowratings', countposts='$countposts',
                     moderateattach='$moderateattach'
                   WHERE forumid='$forumid'"); 


with

PHP Code:

  $DB_site->query("UPDATE forum
                   SET
                     styleid='$styleset', title='".addslashes($title)."', description='".addslashes($description)."',
                     active='$isactive', displayorder='$displayorder', parentid='$parentid', parentlist=$parentlist,
                     allowposting='$allowposting', cancontainthreads='$cancontainthreads',
                     sponsorname='".addslashes($sponsorname)."',sponsorimg='".addslashes($sponsorimg)."',
                     sponsorurl='".addslashes($sponsorurl)."',daysprune='$daysprune',
                     newpostemail='".addslashes($newpostemail)."', newthreademail='".addslashes($newthreademail)."',
                     moderatenew='$moderatenew', allowhtml='$aallowhtmlcode', allowbbcode='$aallowbbcode',
                     allowimages='$aallowimgcode', allowsmilies='$aallowsmilies', allowicons='$aallowicons',
                     styleoverride='$styleoverride', allowratings='$allowratings', countposts='$countposts',
                     moderateattach='$moderateattach'
                   WHERE forumid='$forumid'"); 


(around lines 261-273)
Save and upload forum.php.

In index.php (the main folder) replace this line

PHP Code:

        eval("\$forumbits .= \"".gettemplate("forumhome_forumbit_level$depth$tempext")."\";"); 


with this code

PHP Code:

        if ($forum['sponsorimg'] && $forum['cancontainthreads']==0 && $depth==1) {
          eval("\$forumbits .= \"".gettemplate("forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost_sponsor")."\";");
        } else {
          eval("\$forumbits .= \"".gettemplate("forumhome_forumbit_level$depth$tempext")."\";");
        } 


(around line 298)
Save and upload index.php.

That's it.
If you did everything correctly (it wasn't very hard, was it? ) and I didn't do any mistakes (it's tested alright!, but I might have forgot something to post), you can start adding sponsors to your forum!

[LouChipher]

After 15 pages...
FireFly, your hack is only for categories and not specially for forums, correctly?

[Admin]

Yes.

[nafae]

I added the template in the instructions, but not any others, are there other templates I need to add?

[Ninth Dimension]

Hi everyone, does this hack have the ability to display the sponsors banners on pages other than the forumhome yet?

[Admin]

Yeah I think someone posted how to make it show up showthread.php. Browser the thread.

[Ninth Dimension]

Ah cool (maybe I should spend some more time reading these messages, but 15 pages is a bit much, and I was so busy yesterday)

[dgessler]

I have a question if someone can be nice enough and show me some light. Would it be possible to run this with something like phpAds, or any similar ad-tracking software? Just so that it can keep track of impressions, etc. Possible?

Thanks a lot,
Dan

[hypedave]

I had this previously installed on my vb 2.2.1 board when vb 2.2.5 came out, I built a whole new board, I cant get this to install on vb 2.2.5 for anything in the world has anybody tryed ?

[Wayne2k1.com]

Yup.

Works with 2.2.5 as well

[hypedave]

Originally posted by Wayne2k1.com
Yup.

Works with 2.2.5 as well

how did you get it to work, since I know its works now, I will try again, and i have a problem again I will let you know