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

[gldtn]

Originally Posted by Tigur

Ok im on the latest version of VB3
I just did fresh install on the banner hack. I got the line 518 error, fixed that with the above that was suggested to cyberdream , then told me i had it on 2 other lines, did the same fix. Then i got 3 duplicates in my admincp of the GAB. The add banner thing was not there. had to click a line. Now when i went to upload a banner i got this
Warning: copy(./gab/pagbanner.gif): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /admincp/GAB_admin.php on line 716

What I am also getting database errors when i click on "packages" error:
mysql error: Table 'mydatabasename.GAB_packages' doesn't exist

make sure the directory /gab/ permissions is to 777

[Tigur]

ya i figured the package error was for later. Though the gab dir was set to chmod 777 yet it kept doing it. Well let me try to re download it a 3rd time and try it again

[Tigur]

sorry never mind!! i got it to upload. Its giving me that phrase error but I'll just do the fix in one of the previous posts. Now to figure out why its not showing up on my forum.

***edit***
Ok no point doing a 3rd post when i can just edit. I did everything works fine uploads fine. Now its just my banners that arn't showing up on the main page. i put that $gab_ad1 in the header template. Is that correct?? I don't know im kind of at a loss here. I guess i shouldn't put beta hacks on a live website, and should test it out on a test forum. But I learnt my lesson :surprised: but i need to get this working as i got advertisers wanting to give me money and want their banners up already. Any help please?

PS yes i did read all the forum posts and still can't figure why its not doing it right. I wish I knew PHP well enough that i can just read, find where my problem is, and fix it.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by Tigur

sorry never mind!! i got it to upload. Its giving me that phrase error but I'll just do the fix in one of the previous posts. Now to figure out why its not showing up on my forum.


***edit***
Ok no point doing a 3rd post when i can just edit. I did everything works fine uploads fine. Now its just my banners that arn't showing up on the main page. i put that $gab_ad1 in the header template. Is that correct?? I don't know im kind of at a loss here. I guess i shouldn't put beta hacks on a live website, and should test it out on a test forum. But I learnt my lesson :surprised: but i need to get this working as i got advertisers wanting to give me money and want their banners up already. Any help please?

PS yes i did read all the forum posts and still can't figure why its not doing it right. I wish I knew PHP well enough that i can just read, find where my problem is, and fix it.

Hve you run the 'test'?
I think GAB_ad1 is case sensitive too.

007 - things are coming along pretty well for the next release. I too am desperate to get it finished as I have people waiting to advertise. Over the next week I should get to the next BETA which should have all functionality aside from statistics (that will be for final beta).

lead - right now only paypal is planned as that is all I have. Saying that - I seriously doubt it would be hard to do any other method.

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by LEAD_WEIGHT

I hope more than Paypal can be used and I was wondering that this does work with CMP in that it can be place in the header.

lead - Not sure what you mean. I have mine sitting in vba_index. Is that what you are talking about?

[LEAD_WEIGHT]

Originally Posted by The Geek

lead - Not sure what you mean. I have mine sitting in vba_index. Is that what you are talking about?

vBadvanced CMPS
If I wanted the banner above the navbar like the pic shows that where it will be and the same if I wanted below like the bottum page and by rotating do u mean it changes banners without refreshing page and to clarify another question of mine can I place the image of the banner in my root directory instead of a link from the company code url or that does not matter as long as the banner can click to url , I know I need to make the image appear but I was wondering if it uses bandwidth if the source code/image comes from somewhere else I can make the image come from my root directory and url click to sponcer or company. Is this possible or it does not matter cause the bandwidth will still be use from using the root directory. :dead:

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by LEAD_WEIGHT

vBadvanced CMPS
If I wanted the banner above the navbar like the pic shows that where it will be and the same if I wanted below like the bottum page and by rotating do u mean it changes banners without refreshing page and to clarify another question of mine can I place the image of the banner in my root directory instead of a link from the company code url or that does not matter as long as the banner can click to url , I know I need to make the image appear but I was wondering if it uses bandwidth if the source code/image comes from somewhere else I can make the image come from my root directory and url click to sponcer or company. Is this possible or it does not matter cause the bandwidth will still be use from using the root directory. :dead:

Hi Lead.

If GAB_ad1 is in your navbar template and it is the same one that vbacmps uses, it should still appear there as long as you have adv_index in your other scripts.

The rotating banners change without refreshing the page

I would really recommend that your banners sit in the gab folder. It will use your bandwidth. Future versions will allow you to use their banner - however when you do that - you cant really record click thrus

[Tigur]

*jumps for joy* It works!! Thanks Geek didn't realize that i had some conflicting settings. Example in the settings when i click check all for who can view ads it auto checks below who can toggle it off. I had to manualy click for all to view. At least that is the ONLY thing i did. By the way what does "Problem No script was passed therefore no ad can be pulled." mean?

As well for your mention of the not being able to record click thrus if you link to the advertisers banner; would it not be possible for it to open a new window and then it auto redirects after it records the hit? I've seen some banner systems do that. Example I use mambo CMS for one of my sites and it allows me to do that.

[Visions]

Ok i have installed the hack and in the admin cp where you click on GAB manager to make it drop down it drops down just blank bars that highlight and you can click but there is no text in the bars. One of the bars i believe the 3rd one down gives me a DB mysql error page.Any way I can correct this?

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by visions1

Ok i have installed the hack and in the admin cp where you click on GAB manager to make it drop down it drops down just blank bars that highlight and you can click but there is no text in the bars. One of the bars i believe the 3rd one down gives me a DB mysql error page.Any way I can correct this?

search for a GAB phrase in the control panel phrase groups - edit it and then edit and choose save.

THe last one is in regards to packages which isnt in operation yet.

[CosmicBlend]

When do you think you will have this hack complete... i think this is an excellent hack with SO many features..

[libertate]

I see a way to add images.

How do you add small scripts like Adsense and other add consolidators use?

[The Geek]

Fingers crossed the final should be within next 10 days.

Cant really add scripts (yet). Looks like that will be release after next.

[LEAD_WEIGHT]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Hi Lead.

If GAB_ad1 is in your navbar template and it is the same one that vbacmps uses, it should still appear there as long as you have adv_index in your other scripts.

The rotating banners change without refreshing the page

I would really recommend that your banners sit in the gab folder. It will use your bandwidth. Future versions will allow you to use their banner - however when you do that - you cant really record click thrus

I wanted the image banner in as u say [gab folder] I did not want it from a link at a sponcer or company and thanks now I will wait for that next release. ppl if u have spare change help the coders. .25c 0r $1.00 or more if u want.

[libertate]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Cant really add scripts (yet). Looks like that will be release after next.

What would make the next release come out faster? :devious: