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

[beatyourtruck]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Under the master script (edit the master script)... the Defined ad block has nothing for its banner count. That needs to be at least 1 or no images will get pulled.
Some of your banners are in inactive categories which means they wont appear in the Display page. (They just kind of disapear is the category is blank)
Finally, in your navbar template, you appear to have $GAB_ads[2] and $GAB_ads[5]... but no $GAB_ads[0] and up

The first ad output is always $GAB_ads[0], the next $GAB_ads[1], etc...

HTH's

First thing....I changed the $GAB_ads and everything is working! Thank you for your help and patience!

Re: $GAB - I did not realize that the number had to start with 0 and then progress from there. I thought it just needed to match the desired banner ID. By this, I assume the banner ID is just for my benefit and has no bearing on the display?

Re: Inactive categories. I was only tryiong to use two to get things started....I will get the rest going now.

Re: master script - I am confused bvy your commets but hey, it is working so...... (if it ain't broke...).

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR HELP!

[The Geek]

I think there is a bug with the GAB_wrapper_standard template (I cant tell as Im in a hotel) in that the advertising.php link is hard coded so it isnt carrying your setting into it.

To fix until I get back, just edit your template... its not very big.

Mambo - I have helped at every opportunity. Im sorry its not working for you, however its working for loads. I think that the problem is two fold. 1 is that you didnt get a clean uninstall from Beta 2 and the other simply lies in the complexity of the system. If you want to PM me an admin account, ill og in and check it out for you. Most problems people have had is jsut with configuring it.

As for rotating banners... it does do them without a problem. In the Ad Blocks section, go into the script (or Master script) you want the ad to appear in and either add an ad block or edit an existing one.
Make the first drop down menu be a rotating banner, the second setting the amount of images to rotate (i.e. 3) and the wrapper template the standard (leave the custom drop down empty).

If its the first block for that script, it will spit out as $GAB_ads[0], if its the second, it will spit out as $GAB_ads[1], etc...

As far as a random type of ad (i.e. random between a static ad and adsense between page refreshes)... I considered this but then assumed no one would really want something like that. COnsidering the system can be pretty complex, I didnt want to add even more options to confuse new users.

I am working on the stats system AND refining the system to make it a little more intutitive. Once its set up, its pretty obvious how everything works... however with great power comes the potential for great confusion

As far as the Master script goes... its pretty simple.

I had two options when defining differing blocks depending on the page. The easiest from my end would have been to make you define ad blocks on a script level (set up an ad block per page e.g. showthread, forumdisplay, etc...). Since I thought most people would use the same ad setup on all their pages, I added a 'Master Script' page.
THis way you only have to set up your ad blocks in one section and all the other pages that had 'use master' ticked would 'inherit' their ad blocks from whatever you had set up in master.
This saves having to define an ad block per page...

See. Even there I think Im potentially confusing some... however its pretty simple. Maybe I need another way of saying it

I can't say I totally understand it the entire system, but I did hack the template code to change it from referring to the advertising.php tag, instead just going to my buy an ad page.

I don't totally understand the clicks/view tracking (it doesn't appear to work) but I am to get banners up and display them at least, so that's major progress — and vastly better than what I could do with other packages.

I also know it's not totally finished and look forward to seeing the final product (and will be pushing a donation your way, in part for the software, in part for the excellent support).

Thanks for the work — it makes a big difference to a lot of us.

[carvster]

Wow, I've been waiting for this since you mentioned it some time ago. Thanks for the work you've put in!

I haven't had an opportunity to install this in my test forum yet, but given the impending upgrade to vBulletin 3.5, how will that impact this hack?

[The Geek]

Half the reason for the rewrite is to make it 3.0x compatable and 3.5 compatable. Its not quite 3.5 ready yet - however on the train yesterday I just about got it there.
THat means that when its done, you will have an option to install a clean version for 3.0x or 3.5x. You will also have an option to upgrade from an already installed 3.0x to 3.5 with minimal (if any) effort.

The tracking is working - though the stats viewer is not yet finished. Make sure you installed the cron job to unpack and compress defered stat queries. If you have rc1.5 installed, you can see the crude, unfinished stat viewer to verify.

Cheers all.

[scottct1]

Ok I have a question.

Does this hack allow you to use banners from another server?

What I am trying to do is...

I currently have my ads going through phpAdsNew.

I have two forum sections of my site which have dedicated advertisers, the rest of the site run other ads. For the dedicated sponsored forums, I currently have created another style and modified the header which the forums force that style on the members so the specific ads area only show in specific forums. (Am I being specific enough )

I would like to keep using PHPadsNew, but get rid of all the styles and use a program like this to pull the correct code from phpadsnew to display the correct ads in the correct areas.

As an example, I would like to set it so for the X forums to show the following ad:
The link is: http://ads.satelliteguys.us/adclick.php?n=a8ce476c
The Image url is: http://ads.satelliteguys.us/adview.p...amp;n=a8ce476c

Can I link to external images in this software?

If I can, then I will be able to finally offer my members more then one style which I have now.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by scottct1

Ok I have a question.

Does this hack allow you to use banners from another server?

What I am trying to do is...

I currently have my ads going through phpAdsNew.

I have two forum sections of my site which have dedicated advertisers, the rest of the site run other ads. For the dedicated sponsored forums, I currently have created another style and modified the header which the forums force that style on the members so the specific ads area only show in specific forums. (Am I being specific enough )

I would like to keep using PHPadsNew, but get rid of all the styles and use a program like this to pull the correct code from phpadsnew to display the correct ads in the correct areas.

As an example, I would like to set it so for the X forums to show the following ad:
The link is: http://ads.satelliteguys.us/adclick.php?n=a8ce476c
The Image url is: http://ads.satelliteguys.us/adview.p...amp;n=a8ce476c

Can I link to external images in this software?

If I can, then I will be able to finally offer my members more then one style which I have now.

If I understand right - then you should be able to put the second link in the GAB_custom_custom1 template (or add more custom ones) and set up the block code to use that. Saying that, you wont be able to track impressions or clicks though (actually I think you can still track impressions).

[kafi]

Am I doing something wrong?
I had beta working fine, then i unistalled and installed RC1.01
Since than it is not working and I can not find out why. Only what I know, that global.php is causing the trouble.
When I use original from backup page is loading corectly (of course without GABads).
With GAB_hacked global.php, my page doesnt want to load.

I enclose my global.php so if you would be so kind to review it. Thank you in advance.

Additional infor: GAB Manager is working in admincp

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by kafi

Am I doing something wrong?
I had beta working fine, then i unistalled and installed RC1.01
Since than it is not working and I can not find out why. Only what I know, that global.php is causing the trouble.
When I use original from backup page is loading corectly (of course without GABads).
With GAB_hacked global.php, my page doesnt want to load.

I enclose my global.php so if you would be so kind to review it. Thank you in advance.

Additional infor: GAB Manager is working in admincp

That looks fine. Did you totally uninstall the previous version? Thats the most common problem when upgrading.

Post the results from setting->debug (you need RC1.05)

Oh, and better remove your global.php attachemnt - Jellsoft doesnt like their code posted

[kafi]

ok i removed it (it was only temorarily .-)


here is the debug, but i m not sure that is showing anything since it was not working, but I might be wrong...

PHP Code:

Geek Advertising Banner System
Settings
Beta 2.0=Beta 2.0
$text=$text
other_scripts=
scripts=index,showthread,forumdisplay,forumhome,
forumids=20,21,66,65,67,68,69,70,71,64,40,42,43,41,57,3,4,24,19,5,1,25,26,54,2,36,6,7,37,14,8,22,11,16,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,59,10,38,15,9,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,55,56,12,44,45,13,39,61,62,63,60,18,58,73,72,74,
usergroups=4,6,8,7,2,5,1,3,
fieldtotoggle=1
number_of_ads=2
save_shown=
save_click=1
field_value_yes=10
track_runtime_views=1
usergroups_view=6,
js_banner_count=2
RC1.0=RC1.0
/home/www/porada.sk/www/gab/=/home/www/url/www/gab/
../gab/=../gab/
server_path_to_banners=/home/www/url/www/gab/
url_to_banners=gab/
cyclerate=4300
redirectpage=advertising.php
persist_throttle=3
max_width=
max_height=
media_extensions=
url_advertising=
url_turn_off_ads=

frequency:
0=Low - 1
1=Regular - 2
2=High - 3
3=Mega Striesand High - 4

Templates:
0=Image item - GAB_item_image
1=Flash item - GAB_item_flash
2=Adsense item - GAB_custom_adsense
3=Custom item - GAB_custom_custom1
4=Standard Wrapper - GAB_wrapper_standard

Scripts

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/www/porada.sk/www/admincp/GAB_admin.php on line 1283

Categories
1 'title'=Images - no tracking 'track_views'=0 'track_hits'=0 'template'=0 'ordinal'=5 'isactive'=1 'forums'=,1,2, 'scripts'=,showthread,forumdisplay,forumhome,search,faq,private,usercp,
2 'title'=Flash - no tracking 'track_views'=0 'track_hits'=0 'template'=0 'ordinal'=20 'isactive'=1 'forums'=,20,21,66,65,67,68,69,70,71,64,40,42,43,41,57,3,4,24,19,5,1,25,26,54,2,36,6,7,37,14,8,22,11,16,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,59,10,38,15,9,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,55,56,12,44,45,13,39,61,62,63,60,18,58,75,73,72,74,76,77,79,78,80,81, 'scripts'=,
3 'title'=Images - tracking 'track_views'=1 'track_hits'=1 'template'=0 'ordinal'=10 'isactive'=1 'forums'=,1,2, 'scripts'=,showthread,forumdisplay,forumhome,search,faq,private,usercp,
4 'title'=Flash - tracking 'track_views'=1 'track_hits'=1 'template'=1 'ordinal'=30 'isactive'=1 'forums'=,20,21,66,65,67,68,69,70,71,64,40,42,43,41,57,3,4,24,19,5,1,25,26,54,2,36,6,7,37,14,8,22,11,16,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,59,10,38,15,9,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,55,56,12,44,45,13,39,61,62,63,60,18,58,75,73,72,74,76,77,79,78,80,81, 'scripts'=,
5 'title'=Unknown items 'track_views'=0 'track_hits'=0 'template'=1 'ordinal'=0 'isactive'=1 'forums'=,20,21,66,65,67,68,69,70,71,64,40,42,43,41,57,3,4,24,19,5,1,25,26,54,2,36,6,7,37,14,8,22,11,16,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,59,10,38,15,9,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,55,56,12,44,45,13,39,61,62,63,60,18,58,75,73,72,74,76,77,79,78,80,81, 'scripts'=,
6 'title'=Unknown items 'track_views'=0 'track_hits'=0 'template'=1 'ordinal'=0 'isactive'=1 'forums'= 'scripts'=

Banners
1 'title'=Odporucit 'startdate'=01.01.05 'enddate'=01.01.06 'img'=0/posli_poradu.swf 'max_views'=0 'max_hits'=0 'isactive'=1 'frequency'=0 'template'=0 'catid'=4

Listings

Templates with $GAB_ads[x] in them:
Styleid 2 Title header contains $GAB_ads[1]
Styleid 2 Title footer contains $GAB_ads[0]