Show Thread Enhancements - Digital Point Ad Positioning

About
This allows you to insert an ad into a random location within the post currently being viewed and/or insert an ad after the currently viewed post.

I made this a couple years ago for internal use and decided to release it because a few people have been requesting it.

Installation

• Install the product-dp_positionads.xml product under AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product
• Go to AdminCP -> Settings -> Options -> Digital Point Position Ads for all your settings/options.

Notes

• You can control which usergroups see ads.
• You can control which forums the ads are inserted for.
• This addon works just fine with vBulletin 3 as well as vBulletin 4.
• The ads are inserted relative to the currently viewed post, not necessarily the first/last, etc. post in a thread.
• Requires no template edits.
• Our ad revenue more than doubled when we implemented this (and we opted to only use it for non-registered members).

[digitalpoint]

Originally Posted by naisho

I wish this mod could accept differents ads according to forum ids.

Well it was never designed to be a full-blown ad delivery system. We *do* happen to have something for that (ability to target specific forums, along with full-blown bidding system for advertisers to bid on ad space), but's it something different... http://advertising.digitalpoint.com/publisher.php

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by digitalpoint

You could probably just reorder the execution order so the ad positioning one gets triggered before the other.

Thanks ..

I'm not really a programmer, but I assume you're referring to the Execution Order of the plugins for both mods?

If so, both mods are currently a 5, so should I make yours a 4, or something like that?

Regards,
Doug

[digitalpoint]

Yep... try making mine 1 or something even... that way mine goes first and isn't doing anything to non-standard stuff that other plug-ins are injecting into the post.

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by digitalpoint

Yep... try making mine 1 or something even... that way mine goes first and isn't doing anything to non-standard stuff that other plug-ins are injecting into the post.

I made yours a "1" ...

Doing that caused the "Thanks" to execute properly, but it placed its box under your ad, whereas it's normally tucked up flush under the post...

Since all of its plugins (lots of them) are 5's, should I make yours a 6, which might cause it to put itself under their "Thanks" box?

Thanks again ..

Regards,
Doug

Edit: I did try 6 with ordering your mod, but that blocked out the "Thanks" box, except using 1, which split the "Thanks" box away from the bottom of the post.

[digitalpoint]

The ad that my addon inserts isn't necessarily at the end of the post... it inserts it into a random location inside the post (check it with a long post with lots of paragraphs in it to see what I mean). Because of that, there wouldn't really be a way to insert it after the "Thanks" part since it's inserting somewhere random inside the post, not necessarily the end of the post.

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by digitalpoint

The ad that my addon inserts isn't necessarily at the end of the post... it inserts it into a random location inside the post (check it with a long post with lots of paragraphs in it to see what I mean). Because of that, there wouldn't really be a way to insert it after the "Thanks" part since it's inserting somewhere random inside the post, not necessarily the end of the post.

Ok, I think I understand that but ...

It only happens when I turn ON the Insert Ad After Post part of the mod, not the part that displays inside the ad, which works fine, even with the "Thanks" mod.

Check the pic in my last post and you can see that the ad splits the post when your plugin is set to 1 and overwrites the "Thanks" box (makes it disappear) when set to "5".

Regards,
Doug

[digitalpoint]

Oh, I see what you mean now... I was getting confused thinking it was something else. I fixed it for the next version, but for now if you go into the "Insert Inside & After Current Post" plug-in, change this:

$template_hook['postbit_end'] = $vbulletin->options['dppa_afterpost_html'];

to this:

$template_hook['postbit_end'] .= $vbulletin->options['dppa_afterpost_html'];

Adding the one period will make it append to vs. overwrite anything else using that template hook location.

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by digitalpoint

Oh, I see what you mean now... I was getting confused thinking it was something else. I fixed it for the next version, but for now if you go into the "Insert Inside & After Current Post" plug-in, change this:

$template_hook['postbit_end'] = $vbulletin->options['dppa_afterpost_html'];

to this:

$template_hook['postbit_end'] .= $vbulletin->options['dppa_afterpost_html'];

Adding the one period will make it append to vs. overwrite anything else using that template hook location.

Worked great !! :up:

All plugins left set to 5 and patching with your method above, conflicts with Abe's "Thanks" mod disappear, using 4.04 ...

Thanks partner ..

Regards,
Doug

[digitalpoint]

If the post only has one paragraph it would always be in the same place. The randomness of it inserts it between paragraphs. It looked terribly weird/awkward when you were splitting between sentences within the same paragraph.

[w3rk3d]

This mod is great, but so far doesn't do much more for me than the existing Google AdSense plugin built into vB. In fact I'm seeing conflicts between the two. When the after post option of this mod is enabled, it shows the space for the ad, but no ad actually shows up. Furthermore, it hides the ad at the bottom of the page that was already there for the built-in plugin (again, the space is there, but ad is missing) whether the after post option is enabled or not.

A few suggestions came to mind:

1. Typically admins would want to show ads to fewer groups. Therefore, switch from "hide from groups" to "show to groups". This might also help solve the secondary group logic issue.
2. Make the ads show up in and below more than just the first post.
3. Improve functionality in conjunction with the vB version for Adsense.

The one thing this does beyond the built-in plugin is display an ad for permalinked posts, which is great. I have it installed just for that.

Thanks!