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]

I just can't wait for full version :-((((((

[grecostimpy]

Great hack! I have it mostly working except no ads are showing up.

I have all the scripts ticked on the setting tab as well as my ad.

I added $GAB_ad1 to my breadcrumb template for the navbar

Here's the results of my test:

Variables passed varibales: Usergroup: (COPPA) Users Awaiting Moderation (4), script=index (0), forum=Knowledge Base(85)

Problem No script was passed therefore no ad can be pulled.

Usergroup Passed usergroup. This usergroup is set to view an ad.

Toggle Failed usergroup toggle test. This usergroup could not toggle ads on or off.

Script Passed script test. We are in a script that is set to view an ad.

Results: $GAB_ad1

Why no script?


Am I adding this to my navabr correctly (pardon the newb question)...this the very end of the code in breadcrumb....

		</table>
	</div>
	<!-- / mypopupmenu -->
<!-- / NAVBAR POPUP MENUS -->
</if>

$GAB_ad1

Not sure if I did that right?

[EchoZA]

O.K. I ran the install and all reported fine, I then uploaded the altered files over the old ones, and now my admincp does not show, just a blank page. Restored the backs and I have access to admincp again. I have gone through this process 5 times and the same each time. Any ideas?

[The Geek]

Do you get the navigation page but not the actuall GAB admin page?

There is a bug in the file change for admincp/index.php that leaves an orphaned =false; line. You can just remove that from that page.
Some users had reported problems with the javascript that is in GAB_admin.php (toward the top of the page).
Do one of the following to sort it:
1- After the javascrtipt, change the <? to <?PHP
2- Delete the javascript.

My guess is that the first should sort it for you.

Greco - a common mistake that you may want to check is that you do not have a usergroup set to turn the ads off with a blank value in the - er - value box (hope that makes sense!).

rrr & madman. So you want to give banners based on postcounts? Im sure that wouldnt be too hard to do - but I will reserve that one for the GUSH add on.

[EchoZA]

Originally Posted by The Geek

Do you get the navigation page but not the actuall GAB admin page?

There is a bug in the file change for admincp/index.php that leaves an orphaned =false; line. You can just remove that from that page.
Some users had reported problems with the javascript that is in GAB_admin.php (toward the top of the page).
Do one of the following to sort it:
1- After the javascrtipt, change the <? to <?PHP
2- Delete the javascript.

My guess is that the first should sort it for you.

Greco - a common mistake that you may want to check is that you do not have a usergroup set to turn the ads off with a blank value in the - er - value box (hope that makes sense!).

rrr & madman. So you want to give banners based on postcounts? Im sure that wouldnt be too hard to do - but I will reserve that one for the GUSH add on.

I get a blank white page, no admin login, nothing... which option should I try?

[The Geek]

you may need to do both.

Remove any line that only reads:
=false;
or
= false;

from admincp/index.php

Then check the other points I mentioned.

[EchoZA]

O.K. that seemed to work, but now I am sitting with 2 GAB Manager sections in my AdminCP

[EchoZA]

I've removed it again, can't seem to get it installed properly. Do you have a manual install list?

[EchoZA]

O.K. I am trying again...

Removed all upload files and all origional files in place, upload files, set CHMOD to 777 on dirs, ran install no errors reported.

Step by step

Attempting to auto hack files (in /).
Trying to make gish/gab ... Success!
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0 ... Success!
gish/gab already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0 already exists.
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup ... Success!
copying global.php to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/ ... Success!
copying global.php to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup/ ... Success!
Modifying file: global.php
Completed step 100
Saving changes to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/global.php

gish/gab already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0 already exists.
gish/gab already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0 already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup already exists.
Modifying file: global.php
Completed step 101
Saving changes to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/global.php

gish/gab already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0 already exists.
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp ... Success!
gish/gab already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0 already exists.
gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup already exists.
Trying to make gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup/admincp ... Success!
copying admincp/index.php to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp/ ... Success!
copying admincp/index.php to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/backup/admincp/ ... Success!
Modifying file: admincp/index.php
Completed step 200
Saving changes to gish/gab/Beta 2.0/admincp/index.php

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!

Will no copy files across and check again.

[EchoZA]

O.K. had to remove the = false; and now I have access to my ADMINCP, now when I check my GAB menu looks nothing like your screenshots? When I click save settings, I get "GAS_settings_saved" phrase could not be found, and where do I upload the banners? I'm going to read through this thread again!