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

edit the GAB_ad template

Geek, i tried that earlier, but it is not working. I had even deleted all htm code from template GAB_ad but nothing has changed. :surprised:

[The Geek]

KAC - make sure you have a gab folder chmodded to 0777 in your forum directory

Kafi - There are 3 templates depending on the type of ad, theres the static banner, rollover, and flash tempate. Edit the one that pertains to what you need.

[kafi]

Originally Posted by The Geek

KAC - make sure you have a gab folder chmodded to 0777 in your forum directory

Kafi - There are 3 templates depending on the type of ad, theres the static banner, rollover, and flash tempate. Edit the one that pertains to what you need.

Thank you Geek!!! I managed to find it also. I have changed GAB_ad_rotating and it is working now.


Pleas be patient with me, I have further questions.

Where do I find statistics on views and hits?

[CosmicBlend]

Originally Posted by kafi

Where do I find statistics on views and hits?

Its not implemented yet, it should be though in the final release last time i heard from The Geek

[stroke25]

Geek

I found a problem with adding scripts.I have alot of custom pages and some use dashs and others use underscore in the file name.The ones that use the dash do not work while underscore work fine.

[dkny]

great hack!

is there a way to make the banners appear in vbindex home page? I inserted $GAB_ad1 in the VBindex_header template but not showing up. What would I have to put in the "other script names (comma seperated)" field in the admin?

[CosmicBlend]

Originally Posted by dkny

great hack!

is there a way to make the banners appear in vbindex home page? I inserted $GAB_ad1 in the VBindex_header template but not showing up. What would I have to put in the "other script names (comma seperated)" field in the admin?

Im not familair with vbindex but if its anything like vbadanced cmps you need to add it as a global varible in its settings.

[Hanif]

Wow a certainly intresting read. Just read ll the pages. Well done to you Geek for producing such a hack

When is the final stable advertising banner system coming out Geek?

[kafi]

Geek,

1. I am also very interested what time will be final version. I really need views and hits statistic.

2. How can I produce $GAB_ad2, to use it for different place and different banners?

[Mr.D]

I have a question What banner size do GAB offer can i use code for banners like from some advertising company. Can i show different banners for different categories.