phpAdsNew Banner Ads integration (advertisements, classified ads, Adsense, etc.)

OpenAds / phpAdsNew Integration 1.0.4 for vBulletin 3.[56].x
2006-06-08 by mip

Integrates the OpenAds / phpAdsNew ads system by introducing a new template tag <ad ... />.
You can even deliver your Adsense stuff via phpAdsNew using HTML banners.

The features of phpAdsNew combined with the power of vBulletin's templating system gives you the possibility to place ads for specific user groups, forums, and keywords.

PREREQUISITES:
This plugin requires a working installation (local or remote) of a recent version ofOpenAds / phpAdsNew (free software released under the GPL).
When using OpenAds, replace phpAdsNew in this documentation with OpenAds (phpAdsNew is just the predecessor of OpenAds).

INSTALLATION:
When having a previous version of this product installed, see section UPGRADE instead.

Install product "phpadsnew-1.0.4.xml".
Set phpAdsNew path in Server Settings and Optimization Options to point to either your local phpAdsNew installation or a remote server (using XML-RPC).
It is strongly recommended to set $phpAds_config['compatibility_mode'] = true; in phpAdsNew config file, to prevent problems when phpAdsNew uses a database different from the one used by your vBulletin board.

When using XML-RPC, make sure to have lib-xmlrpc-class.inc.php and lib-xmlrpc.inc.php copied from phpAdsNew misc/samples/xmlrpc/php/ to your forum's includes/ directory (not necessary when using a local phpAdsNew installation).

Read the NOTES section below.

Click INSTALL in this thread to mark product as "installed" and receive notifications when a new version comes out.

UPGRADE:

• 1.0.3 --> 1.0.4
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
• 1.0.2 --> 1.0.3
  Upgrading is recommended, as this is a bugfix release.
  
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
     
  2. Recompile any templates where you experienced problems with the <ad .../> tag (notably those where this tag is used repeatedly on a line).
     
• 1.0.1 --> 1.0.2
  
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
     
  2. Set $phpAds_config['compatibility_mode'] = true; in phpAdsNew config file.
     
• 1.0 --> 1.0.1
  There's basically no need to upgrade, as the changes don't affect a working installation, but I recommend to do so, to ease possible upgrades in the future.
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
  2. Alter the path to phpAdsNew in vBulletin Server Settings and Optimization Options to point to your phpAdsNew installation.
     As opposed to version 1.0 of this product, a local path is not relative to the DOCUMENT_ROOT.

USAGE:
Use the newly introduced <ad ... /> tag in your templates.
The syntax is similar to phpAdsNew's view_raw() function call - the tag understands what, clientid, target, source, and withtext as arguments.

Please make yourself familiar with phpAdsNew prior to using this product. You can't expect this product to work, if you didn't check if your phpAdsNew is delivering your banners cleanly.

Examples:

• Get banner using keywords:
  <ad what="foo|bar" />
• Get banner for guest usergroup (in this case, "ug1" must be set as a keyword in phpADsNew, see 2nd screenshot):
  <ad what="ug$bbuserinfo['usergroupid']" />
  (same technique can be applied to deliver forum-specific ads)
• Similar invocation using template conditionals:
  <if condition="$bbuserinfo['usergroupid']==1"><ad what="" /></if>

NOTES:

1. Always use the latest stable version of phpAdsNew.
   Old versions had bugs and some even had severe security issues - I'll give no support for installations with an outdated phpAdsNew.
   At the time of writing, latest version is 2.0.8.
2. Templates which make use of the ad-tag might need to get recompiled after product change.
3. Recommendations for heavy-duty servers: Move the plugin code to files; try to avoid using xml-rpc or cache xml-rpc requests (e.g. with memcache).
4. Have an eye on current phpAdsNew security issues
5. This product comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
6. Support is provided at will.
   Don't expect help if you haven't read instructions or phpAdsNew manual, if you're using non-standard vBulletin software or if your problem descriptions are useless.

PS:
This plugin is donationware - it helps you to make some money, so please be fair and honor my work with an adequate pecuniary donation.
Donate via Paypal

[Xstreamist]

Is there no support for this??? The support option for this plugin is checked off.. if there's no support it should be unchecked.... I still don't have this working and I just lost two sponsors yesterday because of it.... My remaining 4 sponsors are threatnening to leave as well.... Should I just uninstall this nightmare plugin or is there going to be support??????

[ConqSoft]

Originally Posted by Xstreamist

Is there no support for this??? The support option for this plugin is checked off.. if there's no support it should be unchecked.... I still don't have this working and I just lost two sponsors yesterday because of it.... My remaining 4 sponsors are threatnening to leave as well.... Should I just uninstall this nightmare plugin or is there going to be support??????

I think you have already answered your own question. If I was having a problem with it, I would have switched to another method WELL before losing a sponsor over it. That sounds like poor handling of the situation on your part, but that's just my opinion.

[tgmorris]

Originally Posted by Xstreamist

Is there no support for this??? The support option for this plugin is checked off.. if there's no support it should be unchecked.... I still don't have this working and I just lost two sponsors yesterday because of it.... My remaining 4 sponsors are threatnening to leave as well.... Should I just uninstall this nightmare plugin or is there going to be support??????

I don't know what to say. I had it working on my test board and then put 3.5.2 on my live forum. I installed this there the same as on my test board and it wouldn't work. I did get it working so I thought I'd found the problem. However when I went to confirm this the change made no difference and things continued to work.

At the moment I have this running on my live forum via xml and it's serving ads fine. I also added a conditional so that the AdSense stuff doesn't violate the TOS for my google ads by creating 2 zones that are the same except one doesn't include the google ads.

In theory this is supposed to work if phpAdsNew is in a separate db but that generates errors so I'm using the xml interface. My board's low traffic so that's OK. It apparently does work fine if the phpAdsNew db is the same as the vb db.

[Xstreamist]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

I think you have already answered your own question. If I was having a problem with it, I would have switched to another method WELL before losing a sponsor over it. That sounds like poor handling of the situation on your part, but that's just my opinion.

Way to shift the blame Conq. This is SUPPOSED to be a supported plugin. The blame for not getting support does NOT lay with me.

[ConqSoft]

You're the one trying to blame the author of a FREE hack for the loss of your sponsors. That's BS. That's all on you for not having it tested and confirmed to be working in a test environment before going live.

[The M.I.P.]

Version 1.0.2 is out with a minor fix towards PHP 5.1.1 compatibility.
Please make sure to have set $phpAds_config['compatibility_mode'] = true; in phpAdsNew config file, as this resolves problems with a local phpAdsNew installation when phpAdsNew's tables are in a database different from the one used by your vBulletin board.

[Xstreamist]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

You're the one trying to blame the author of a FREE hack for the loss of your sponsors. That's BS. That's all on you for not having it tested and confirmed to be working in a test environment before going live.

Whether it's free or not is NOT relevant at all. The FACT that the "SUPPORTED" option is checked and I have receiver NO support IS!!!!!!!!!! If I had received the support I am suppose to receive to get it working I would NOT have lost sponsors. If the support option was not checked off I wouldn't have posted for support here in the first place. I probably wouldn't even have installed it. But given the fact that it is SUPPOSED to be supported I felt reasonably safe in installing it expecting I would receive assistance if needed. The entire issue at hand is that the author is misleading people by saying he supports the plugin when he doesn't. END OF STORY!!!!

[ConqSoft]

He seems to be supporting it just fine... He even posted another update.

Again, you put a hack onto your production site without testing it and confirming it was working first, so losing the sponsors was completely YOUR fault, no matter how you would like to try to twist it around.

[The M.I.P.]

@Xstreamist:
"Supported" means that I look after this thread, fix reported bugs (those with useful descriptions, not ones like "it doesn't work") and make sure it works as per description on clean installations of recent versions of vBulletin and phpAdsNew.
It does not mean that I'm giving free personal assistance for a user.

[Dollah]

will also try this