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

[kafi]

Originally Posted by The Geek

All things going weell we should see an RC this weekend.

Geek thanks for this and all you do .-)

[steadicamop]

This is a GREAT hack, adds all the extra stuff you ever wanted for ad banners!

I installed it quickly, and let it do the file changes, it actually messed up and missed out a $printhr from the admincp/index file, but not the issue.

I've uninstalled the hack and will try again tomorrow (late here!) but I had problems with the phrases, the GAB_settings_saved didn't work - it didn't exists, plus it would allow me to upload an image - failed to open stream.

I will try again tomorrow and give more detailed info, should it do it again, this time I'll make the file changes manually - I don't mind that much

Can't wait to get this working, just what I need!!

Thanks!

[grecostimpy]

Originally Posted by The Geek

and all scripts are ticked and there is a $GAB_ad1 in your navbar template?

Yes....no luck. I know obviously I'm doing something wrong, as it's working for everyone. I think I may uninstall and try over.

[tomshawk]

Originally Posted by grecostimpy

Yes....no luck. I know obviously I'm doing something wrong, as it's working for everyone. I think I may uninstall and try over.

No, you are not the only one

I had phrase problems and

even though the built in tester said it was successful, No errors.

It still didn't show up.

I basically said, I'll wait until the full version comes out.

Luckily I always test big things like this, on a non public site

As The Geek said many times,

It is a beta after all

[jamiepryer@hotm]

sorry for sounding like a total looser, but i have no idea what the following means - really sorry guys, i am new to all this :ermm:

Ensure the gish folder is chmod 0777
Make sure that the gish folder (and its contents) are chmod'ed to 0777

so i got the following error:

Attempting to auto hack files (in /).
Trying to make gish/gab ... Problem creating dir gish/gab !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0 !
Trying to make gish/gab ... Problem creating dir gish/gab !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0 !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup !
Destination path gish/gab/Beta 2.0/ doesnt exist. Cant copy files over for amending. Check readme for details on how to work around this.
Modifying file: global.php
gish/gab/Beta 2.0/global.php doesnt exist. Cant try to change.
Trying to make gish/gab ... Problem creating dir gish/gab !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0 !
Trying to make gish/gab ... Problem creating dir gish/gab !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0 !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup !
Destination path gish/gab/Beta 2.0/ doesnt exist. Cant copy files over for amending. Check readme for details on how to work around this.
Modifying file: global.php
gish/gab/Beta 2.0/global.php doesnt exist. Cant try to change.
Trying to make gish/gab ... Problem creating dir gish/gab !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0 !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp !
Trying to make gish/gab ... Problem creating dir gish/gab !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0 !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup !
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup/admincp ... Problem creating dir gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup/admincp !
Destination path gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp/ doesnt exist. Cant copy files over for amending. Check readme for details on how to work around this.
Modifying file: admincp/index.php
gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp/index.php doesnt exist. Cant try to change.
File Changes complete.
All files I changed are in /Beta 2.0. You will need to copy those over to their forum locations once you are satisfied they are changed correctly.
Completed Install!

[tomshawk]

Originally Posted by jamiepryer@hotm

sorry for sounding like a total looser, but i have no idea what the following means - really sorry guys, i am new to all this :ermm:

Ensure the gish folder is chmod 0777
Make sure that the gish folder (and its contents) are chmod'ed to 0777

so i got the following error:

The program you used to upload the files for this hack should have the ability to chmod.

chmod tutorial
http://catcode.com/teachmod/

Basically you need to change the permissions of the folder and all contents to 0777 which is read/write access.

the errors you are getting is because the script cant write the files to that directory.

HTH

[jamiepryer@hotm]

sorted
i was using DW but i have a proper FTP client now
sorry guys

[jamiepryer@hotm]

Hi,
ive installed the hack and all seems good

but when i go to my AdminCP and go to the "GAB Manager" drop down - nothing shows
i can click things and it brings up the menus, but the names are missing?

sorry if this is a repost, i did check to see if this has already been asked

[steadicamop]

Ok here's the bugs I've found so far using VBB 3.0.7:

Phrase seems to be missing, even when you manually add it, it still doesn't show:

Could not find phrase 'GAB_settings_saved'.

Placing this code in the navbar template doesn't do anything:

$GAB_ad1

Error in admincp/index.php code change - code is:

= false;
// === GAB ===

Should be:

$printhr = false;
// === GAB ===

On advertising.php (I presume people can add their banners using this) - database error:

Invalid SQL: SELECT * FROM GAB_packages ORDER BY ordinal,title,id ASC
mysql error: Table 'db114478486.GAB_packages' doesn't exist

Found an error in admin/GAB_admin.php - looking for the wrong phrase (line 1034):

print_stop_message('GAS_settings_saved');

Should be GAB_settings_saved - but see above phrase issue.

A directory isn't created, this might be me not reading it right, but you need a ./gas directory for the images to be uploaded to.

And basically, I can't get it working, at all, I'm hoping that these will be resolved and a non beta will be released, this is a great hack.

[jamiepryer@hotm]

++++ - sorry guys
i found it in the end! my bad

all working - cheers

[jamiepryer@hotm]

right, im defaintly stuck now and i have read everything! sorry!

i cant get the ad's to save and i cant seem to upload images - altho i feel it would be so much easier if i could just put in a hyper link of where the banner is located on my server - is that poss?

[Multani]

You are right and I still cant get it to work. Install is ok and testing shows up, but $GAB_ad1 does nothing to my templates...

Originally Posted by steadicamop

Ok here's the bugs I've found so far using VBB 3.0.7:

Phrase seems to be missing, even when you manually add it, it still doesn't show:

Could not find phrase 'GAB_settings_saved'.

Placing this code in the navbar template doesn't do anything:

$GAB_ad1

Error in admincp/index.php code change - code is:

= false;
// === GAB ===

Should be:

$printhr = false;
// === GAB ===

On advertising.php (I presume people can add their banners using this) - database error:

Invalid SQL: SELECT * FROM GAB_packages ORDER BY ordinal,title,id ASC
mysql error: Table 'db114478486.GAB_packages' doesn't exist

Found an error in admin/GAB_admin.php - looking for the wrong phrase (line 1034):

print_stop_message('GAS_settings_saved');

Should be GAB_settings_saved - but see above phrase issue.

A directory isn't created, this might be me not reading it right, but you need a ./gas directory for the images to be uploaded to.

And basically, I can't get it working, at all, I'm hoping that these will be resolved and a non beta will be released, this is a great hack.

[Multani]

I have $GAB_ad1 in the navbar, I run the test and everything looks fine, but the add wont show up on the forum.

[The Geek]

if u PM me an admin account Ill look at it for you

[Multani]

Originally Posted by The Geek

if u PM me an admin account Ill look at it for you

sent