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Geek Advertising Banner system RC1 · **Released**: 04-10-2005

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

The Geek · #17 04-12-2005, 09:33 AM

Try the new package (overwrite all files).. not sure if that will help as I cant reproduce it.

New package addresses:

fixed minor typo in README (didnt say which file to edit)
Put some info on how the banners are pulled in README
Added settings for which usergroups see ad
removed extra isactive setting
Fixed flash banners not appearing
Added new setting for #of ads in rotating banner
Flash ads now appear when editing ads
To update from 1.00 just overwrite GAB_admin.php, GAB_redirect and functions_gab.php

The Geek · #18 04-12-2005, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stormblast

Ok I added:

PHP Code:


			
// ################### PRE-CACHE TEMPLATES AND DATA ######################

// get special phrase groups

$phrasegroups = array();



// get special data templates from the datastore

$specialtemplates = array();



// pre-cache templates used by all actions

$globaltemplates = array();



// pre-cache templates used by specific actions

$actiontemplates = array();

in GAB_redirect.php
Now a new window is being opened but the site cannot be displayed. Although the array.merge error is gone..

Cool. I addded a couple of those arrays to GAB_redirect in the 1.01 package, but not action templates or globaltemplates.
Ill put those in 1.02 (though I dont think they are really needed).
Make sure that the URL in the ad is valid and that it doesnt start with http://
In 1.02 ill make it so it will have to have http:// to work though.

reteep · #19 04-12-2005, 10:01 AM

Works perfectly on PHP5 now, thanks! Very good work

I'll continue testing..

#20 04-12-2005, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Geek

Personally - I think the community would benefit by all the banner hack writers getting together and teaming up to build one. No sense in having 50 different banner hacks that are all slightly different enough to confuse the hell out of people.

That's exactly why i suggest you to merge my own banner/sponsors hacks... you have my full permission, and my welcome on this... i may provide some support here and there, but as i quit the community in less than 2 months, i will not "support" the script by myself!

reteep · #21 04-12-2005, 10:28 AM

More Feedback:

Somewhere there's a bug in rage. I'm not sure if it's a problem of PHP5. As soon as I made the modifications to global.php the "Write a PM" Site is bogus.

On the top of the "Write a PM Page" it says:

Quote:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /includes/functions_editor.php on line 443

And most phrases are empty. Additionaly the quick reply box is screwed, directly after the global.php changes. When reverting globa.php changes everything is fine..

#22 04-12-2005, 10:46 AM

problem with your modification of phrasecalls, make it like this one and everything will be ok:
put this on top of global.php...

PHP Code:


			
if(!is_array($globaltemplates)) $globaltemplates = array();

if(!is_array($phrasegroups)) $phrasegroups = array();

if(!is_array($specialtemplates)) $specialtemplates = array();

if(!is_array($actiontemplates)) $actiontemplates = array();

The Geek · #23 04-12-2005, 10:50 AM

wow - thats a trip!

Cant reproduce. What page do you get that error on (i.e. private.php?do=newpm)? Im running PHP4x and I didnt get the error before - looks like PHP5 is more serious about these things. However, I am not sure what would cause an emptying of the bbcode cache?

The Geek · #24 04-12-2005, 10:53 AM

Cheers Nexialys. So you are suggesting to put that above the global.php modifiaction?

BTW - kind offer re: your hacks. Ill take a closer look at them and see what we can do. Its a real shame you are oging to bail in a few months. Your a bit handy round these parts

#25 04-12-2005, 11:00 AM

the fix i suggest on top of global.php is for any hack... i found it easier to deal with this once and for all... when you have this installed, you can forget the missing arrays..

btw, thanks for the comment... i may be useful, but i'm more useful here at home, a baby will come in a week or two, and i'm the one in charge...

danhaga · #26 04-12-2005, 12:20 PM

Im installing now... when I click on any of the GAB buttons on the admin page I get a blank screen..

Im at this step:

"GO TO YOUR GAB SETTINGS IN YOUR ADMINCP

-----------------------------------------
Create the following tempaltes:
-----------------------------------------
name: GAB_ad
-----------------------------------------
<div align="center">
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="tborder" colspan="2" width="100%">
<tr>
<td align="ce"

I cant create the templates because im just getting blank screens, please help

thanks

The Geek · #27 04-12-2005, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by danhaga

Im installing now... when I click on any of the GAB buttons on the admin page I get a blank screen..

Im at this step:

"GO TO YOUR GAB SETTINGS IN YOUR ADMINCP

-----------------------------------------
Create the following tempaltes:
-----------------------------------------
name: GAB_ad
-----------------------------------------
<div align="center">
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" class="tborder" colspan="2" width="100%">
<tr>
<td align="ce"

I cant create the templates because im just getting blank screens, please help

thanks

Have you uploaded all files to the correct locations and correctly modified your global.php file?
Are all pages (excluding GAB) coming up blank?

danhaga · #28 04-12-2005, 12:58 PM

Its only the gab stuff coming up blank...

I checked the files and I think i did it right.

do the gab folder and gab_redirect.php get uploaded to the main forum folder? I did that also

The Geek · #29 04-12-2005, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by danhaga

Its only the gab stuff coming up blank...

I checked the files and I think i did it right.

do the gab folder and gab_redirect.php get uploaded to the main forum folder? I did that also

yes, they do.

Make sure that there are no spaces at the end of the GAB_admin.php file (after the last ?> )

danhaga · #30 04-12-2005, 01:05 PM

dont see any spaces

danhaga · #31 04-12-2005, 01:09 PM

In the attached image you can see what im talkin about. If i move the mouse over the buttons i can see the link in the lower left corner of browser... i click it, the screen goes white and it says done...

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.06050 seconds Memory Usage 2,367KB Queries Executed 30 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)ad_showthread_beforeqr (2)bbcode_php (5)bbcode_quote (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (6)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (3)pagenav_pagelink (1)pagenav_pagelinkrel (16)post_thanks_box (16)post_thanks_button (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (16)post_thanks_postbit_info (15)postbit (13)postbit_onlinestatus (16)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)tagbit_wrapper Phrase Groups Available: global inlinemod postbit posting reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete showthread_start showthread_getinfo forumjump showthread_post_start showthread_query_postids showthread_query bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create showthread_postbit_create postbit_factory postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end fetch_musername postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete post_thanks_function_can_thank_this_post_start pagenav_page pagenav_complete tag_fetchbit_complete forumrules navbits navbits_complete showthread_complete
Messages:

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