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

[LincolnForums]

its hard to download that xml file using Firefox.

any chance of getting a zipped package?

[The M.I.P.]

Originally Posted by LincolnForums

its hard to download that xml file using Firefox.
any chance of getting a zipped package?

For your convenience, MIME-type of phpadsnew-1.0.xml is now set to application/octet-stream which should make your browser ask to save the file instead of open it.

BTW:
There's also a "save as" dialogue in the context menu of your browser.

[dreck]

sweet.. I just install phpAdsNew just the other day.
This will definally come in handy.

Now I just have to figure out how to use it.

/install

[LincolnForums]

Originally Posted by The M.I.P.

For your convenience, MIME-type of phpadsnew-1.0.xml is now set to application/octet-stream which should make your browser ask to save the file instead of open it.

BTW:
There's also a "save as" dialogue in the context menu of your browser.

thank you very much

[tamborinegal]

This looks like just what I need, but can I place an ad anywhere else or only in the header template? I'd love it if I could use it after the first post in a thread for example.

Thanks

[jimporter]

Originally Posted by tamborinegal

This looks like just what I need, but can I place an ad anywhere else or only in the header template? I'd love it if I could use it after the first post in a thread for example.

Thanks

Tamborinegal, see this post How To Show A Banner After The First Post In A Thread and amend accordingly.

[Milez]

Testing this on a busy board. Problem is my ads will not display and since they display normally on non vbulletin pages I am assuming it is the setting in the admincp for the path to PAN. Since my PAN install is outside of the vbb document root the setting does not seem to work: /web/adserve. I have tried ../web/adserve and no go either.

Anyone run into this?

What a shame. I really do not want to guinea pig the XML-RPC method.

[The M.I.P.]

Originally Posted by tamborinegal

This looks like just what I need, but can I place an ad anywhere else or only in the header template? I'd love it if I could use it after the first post in a thread for example.

You can use the <ad ... /> tags anywhere in your templates. When using multiple <ad ... /> tags on a page, you should define an own zone for each ad in phpAdsNew - see the phpAdsNew user guide for more infos.

[Milez]

Strange still no go. I used a relative path like /web/adserve. I added a banner in my header template like: <ad what="zone:2" />

Q: Have you tested this for anything beyond .html banners I see you are using above? My banners are all images but I did not think that would make a difference.

[Milez]

Sorry...Banners are displaying now.

My issue now is that the options for the <ad> tags are not bringing up the right zones. <ad what="zone:2" /> is a rotating 468x60 banner with a few image banners but other unrelated banners are being displayed for some reason. I tried targetting specific banners with clientid="x" as well but no dice.

From looking at your code this really should be working.