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

[Cust0ms]

hello
i want to add a vertical banner to forumhome and all pages of my forum.
I tested it and add veriable @vbbanners_vertical@ under $navbar in forumhome template but I see my banner under navbar. I want to see it on right my forums.

Please, help me.

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Cust0ms

hello
i want to add a vertical banner to forumhome and all pages of my forum.
I tested it and add veriable @vbbanners_vertical@ under $navbar in forumhome template but I see my banner under navbar. I want to see it on right my forums.

Please, help me.

I'm not good enough in design to tell the exact way how to do it. Basically you have to move your main page into 2 columns, one of which works as the placeholder for the banners.

[Spika]

Great job!
Thank you very much!

[tiekie]

I unistalled this script because it was breaking the forum tablets a little bit .... but even after the uninstall the forum tablest is still a little off.

What do you think the problem is ? and how do i fix it?

Here is a link to the problem:
http://www.presssex.com/forum.php (warning adult)

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by tiekie

I unistalled this script because it was breaking the forum tablets a little bit .... but even after the uninstall the forum tablest is still a little off.

What do you think the problem is ? and how do i fix it?

Here is a link to the problem:
http://www.presssex.com/forum.php (warning adult)

Search for the placeholders @vbbanners@ and @vbbanners_vertical@ in your templates and remove them. That's all, unless of course you have made other modifications.

The product itself does not add itself into any template, all changes are made directly by the forum owner. If it wasn't, I would have had a hundred issues already, since people are moving the banners many times before they fit, and actually it was designed as a simple addon leaving all the freedom to its users

As for your problem, it looks like as if you have made a change to the vbadvanced module regarding the forum home page. And generally to the logo section in the header template. If you have saved your template changes in the style history, you should be able to roll back without problems.

For the logo, it is likely you have filled ad_header_logo with something empty, such as a table with 50% or 400px width, else I couldn't explain the gap. And maybe that's all.

[tiekie]

Thanks for the fast reply

I never put the placeholders @vbbanners@ and @vbbanners_vertical@ on my forum

Inside the admin cp there was the option to place a banner from a url which i did but i never seen the banner displayed and thats when i notice the problem. I unistalled the mod thinking it will be fixed but it wasnt.

So, do you think thats the problem? and if so which template should i go look in and for what? ... im still a litle stupid with these things

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by tiekie

Thanks for the fast reply

I never put the placeholders @vbbanners@ and @vbbanners_vertical@ on my forum

Inside the admin cp there was the option to place a banner from a url which i did but i never seen the banner displayed and thats when i notice the problem. I unistalled the mod thinking it will be fixed but it wasnt.

So, do you think thats the problem? and if so which template should i go look in and for what? ... im still a litle stupid with these things

If you never used the placeholders the plugin was never working, and thus could not cause any problem. In this case you need to undo the changes you have applied to your styles.

The banner records you are talking about are stored in the database only and have no effect on your board until you show somewhere a @vbbanners@ placeholder. Only then the plugin activates and replaces @vbbanners@ with a banner contained in the database (if any).

[rolandogomez]

Works perfect! Thanks, great mod. I also incorporated with the Video Mod for a demo, see here: main video index (look between "Latest Videos" and "Most Viewed.") Also here: when viewing a video (between the video clip and "Video Details."

Excellent! Thanks, rg sends!

[Sunka]

Originally Posted by y2ksw

This makes me fear

 
<if condition="$show['member']">
    @vbbanners@
<else />
    <!-- Google Ads -->
</if>

Any news for usergroups see/not see banners

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by Sunka

Any news for usergroups see/not see banners

Not yet - real life demands my full attention ... but I have it scheduled