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

[The Geek]

You wont see any spaces as they are invisible

Just edit the GAB_admin.php and try to highlight anything after ?>

Chances are that you will grab some space. Delete it. This is most likely the culprit and rare occurence when uploading php files.

[danhaga]

there is nothing after it

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by danhaga

there is nothing after it

Try redownloading the package and re-upload the GAB_admin.php

[danhaga]

redownloading and using the new file did not work, any other ideas?

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by danhaga

redownloading and using the new file did not work, any other ideas?

got me mate. That does the trick 99% of the time with file uploads.
Can you browse to the page direct? http://www.YOURSITE.com/forum/admincp/GAB_admin.php

[KTBleeding]

If the page is blank doesn't that mean the templates weren't installed correctly?

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by KTBleeding

If the page is blank doesn't that mean the templates weren't installed correctly?

Usually - but no templates are used in an admnicp panel. At least none that this hack uses.

[danhaga]

Originally Posted by The Geek

got me mate. That does the trick 99% of the time with file uploads.
Can you browse to the page direct? http://www.YOURSITE.com/forum/admincp/GAB_admin.php

When I do that I get a white screen... no errors

It does ask me for login/password before it goes white

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by danhaga

When I do that I get a white screen... no errors

It does ask me for login/password before it goes white

? this is getting stranger by the minute ?

All of your other admincp page are cool?

[danhaga]

Originally Posted by The Geek

? this is getting stranger by the minute ?

All of your other admincp page are cool?

yup... everything else on the entire forum... regular and admin is fine

[Eternal2u]

this is very nicely done..

i made my own banner rotation system, thinking about removing it and adding yours tho..lol saddness..

[Snow]

:banana: :banana: Another great hack from The Geek

I've got a little question though, can you set it up so that 'tacky ad' is shown in 'chit chat' forum and 'expensive ad' is shown in 'serious forum' or does it just show the one banner on all pages?

[The Geek]

Originally Posted by Snow

:banana: :banana: Another great hack from The Geek

I've got a little question though, can you set it up so that 'tacky ad' is shown in 'chit chat' forum and 'expensive ad' is shown in 'serious forum' or does it just show the one banner on all pages?

You can set it up to show wherever you want on an ad by ad basis.

I have also got gut loads more done... Just wait till Beta 2

[Snow]

Originally Posted by The Geek

You can set it up to show wherever you want on an ad by ad basis.

I have also got gut loads more done... Just wait till Beta 2

thanks, I'll wait a bit then.

[dmatthams]

Hey there, this is the exact hack I have been looking for my site, so much thanks! ( I also just installed your auto av resize =] )

I have followed the instructions and everthing seems to be ok. I have placed $GAB_ad1 in my navbar template, but I get no ads show up

Im betting on it being me doing somthing stupid, but can anyone give me a hand?