phpAdsNew Banner Ads integration (advertisements, classified ads, Adsense, etc.)

OpenAds / phpAdsNew Integration 1.0.4 for vBulletin 3.[56].x
2006-06-08 by mip

Integrates the OpenAds / phpAdsNew ads system by introducing a new template tag <ad ... />.
You can even deliver your Adsense stuff via phpAdsNew using HTML banners.

The features of phpAdsNew combined with the power of vBulletin's templating system gives you the possibility to place ads for specific user groups, forums, and keywords.

PREREQUISITES:
This plugin requires a working installation (local or remote) of a recent version ofOpenAds / phpAdsNew (free software released under the GPL).
When using OpenAds, replace phpAdsNew in this documentation with OpenAds (phpAdsNew is just the predecessor of OpenAds).

INSTALLATION:
When having a previous version of this product installed, see section UPGRADE instead.

Install product "phpadsnew-1.0.4.xml".
Set phpAdsNew path in Server Settings and Optimization Options to point to either your local phpAdsNew installation or a remote server (using XML-RPC).
It is strongly recommended to set $phpAds_config['compatibility_mode'] = true; in phpAdsNew config file, to prevent problems when phpAdsNew uses a database different from the one used by your vBulletin board.

When using XML-RPC, make sure to have lib-xmlrpc-class.inc.php and lib-xmlrpc.inc.php copied from phpAdsNew misc/samples/xmlrpc/php/ to your forum's includes/ directory (not necessary when using a local phpAdsNew installation).

Read the NOTES section below.

Click INSTALL in this thread to mark product as "installed" and receive notifications when a new version comes out.

UPGRADE:

• 1.0.3 --> 1.0.4
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
• 1.0.2 --> 1.0.3
  Upgrading is recommended, as this is a bugfix release.
  
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
     
  2. Recompile any templates where you experienced problems with the <ad .../> tag (notably those where this tag is used repeatedly on a line).
     
• 1.0.1 --> 1.0.2
  
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
     
  2. Set $phpAds_config['compatibility_mode'] = true; in phpAdsNew config file.
     
• 1.0 --> 1.0.1
  There's basically no need to upgrade, as the changes don't affect a working installation, but I recommend to do so, to ease possible upgrades in the future.
  1. Import product as usual, with "Allow Overwrite" set to Yes.
  2. Alter the path to phpAdsNew in vBulletin Server Settings and Optimization Options to point to your phpAdsNew installation.
     As opposed to version 1.0 of this product, a local path is not relative to the DOCUMENT_ROOT.

USAGE:
Use the newly introduced <ad ... /> tag in your templates.
The syntax is similar to phpAdsNew's view_raw() function call - the tag understands what, clientid, target, source, and withtext as arguments.

Please make yourself familiar with phpAdsNew prior to using this product. You can't expect this product to work, if you didn't check if your phpAdsNew is delivering your banners cleanly.

Examples:

• Get banner using keywords:
  <ad what="foo|bar" />
• Get banner for guest usergroup (in this case, "ug1" must be set as a keyword in phpADsNew, see 2nd screenshot):
  <ad what="ug$bbuserinfo['usergroupid']" />
  (same technique can be applied to deliver forum-specific ads)
• Similar invocation using template conditionals:
  <if condition="$bbuserinfo['usergroupid']==1"><ad what="" /></if>

NOTES:

1. Always use the latest stable version of phpAdsNew.
   Old versions had bugs and some even had severe security issues - I'll give no support for installations with an outdated phpAdsNew.
   At the time of writing, latest version is 2.0.8.
2. Templates which make use of the ad-tag might need to get recompiled after product change.
3. Recommendations for heavy-duty servers: Move the plugin code to files; try to avoid using xml-rpc or cache xml-rpc requests (e.g. with memcache).
4. Have an eye on current phpAdsNew security issues
5. This product comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
6. Support is provided at will.
   Don't expect help if you haven't read instructions or phpAdsNew manual, if you're using non-standard vBulletin software or if your problem descriptions are useless.

PS:
This plugin is donationware - it helps you to make some money, so please be fair and honor my work with an adequate pecuniary donation.
Donate via Paypal

[montsa007]

Will this work on 3.6.10??

[Tapage]

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

Sure, should working on all websites.

Go first into your openx admin area f.ex. yoursiteurlopenx/www/admin/dashboard.php
After -->Inventory ---> Direct Selection
There should be the Bannercode.
Will be only there if you created a campaign and zone.
You can change the code from default php to javascript tag (Please choose the type of banner invocation).
You only need to add this javascript to the place you want to show the banner.
In my case I added it into the header template.

<tr>
  <td width="25" align="$stylevar[left]">&nbsp;</td>
  <td align="$stylevar[right]"><div align="left"><a href="$vboptions[forumhome].php$session[sessionurl_q]"><img src="$stylevar[titleimage]" alt="$vboptions[bbtitle]" width="468" height="60" border="0" /></a></div>
<td>
	<!--/* OpenX Javascript Tag v2.5.67-beta */-->

...........
</td>
<tr>
	<td width="20" align="$stylevar[left]">&nbsp;</td>
	
	<td align="$stylevar[right]">	<div id="buttons_outer"> 
		<div id="buttons_inner"> 
			<div id="buttons">

Thanks dude . . I will do it in my forum ( already have the java tag in open X ) and report it back here .. !

[jw00dy]

I screwed up and upgraded to OpenX 2.6 and something with the invocation code has changed making this not work anymore

The M.I.P. if you are out there, would you mind helping get this fixed. I am not a coder, so fixing it myself ... well it wouldn't happen.

I can help with the new invocation codes etc since I have them...

Help!

To everyone else, don't upgrade to 2.6 unless you don't want to serve ads any more...

[Dennis B]

Alright, got it working here with 3.7.2 and openx 2.6.0. :up:

1. Remove this hack entirely, but before you do it, make note of the "search strings", the "XYZ" that go into every <ad what="XYZ">
2. Follow Ramsesx instructions above, just don't forget to paste each old "search string", the "XYZ" that went into <ad what="XYZ">, into the "Banner selection" box when getting the javascript.

That's it!

[jw00dy]

This is a work around, but not quite a fix. I ended up canning 2.6 and going back. I had to recreate everything, but I'm back in business...

If you want it to work with the <ad what="adsf"> tag only, don't go to 2.6.

[Dennis B]

Oh yes, that's exactly the case, it's just one way of getting it to work, I never implied it to be a fix.

[slo_chewie]

I've gotten OpenX to work on my board. I am getting occasional MySQL errors I don't know how to get around though. The MySQL errors don't seem to affect my forum members, but the emails are kind of annoying and I would like to know if anyone knows how to fix it.

If someone else already posted this then I apologize. My work around was an amalgamation of ideas I got reading this forum, the OpenX forums and vBulletin manual.

I got my PHP Invocation code from OpenX and modified it slightly and created a plugin in the vBulletin Admin.

Log into the Admin. Plugins & Products -> Add New Plugin

Product: vBulletin
Hook Location: global_start
Title: OpenX
Execution Order: 5
Plugin PHP Code:

$tz = date_default_timezone_get();

define('MAX_PATH', '/home/website/openx');
  if (@include_once(MAX_PATH . '/www/delivery/alocal.php')) {
    if (!isset($phpAds_context)) {
      $phpAds_context = array();
    }
    $phpAds_raw = view_local('', 0, 3, 0, '', '', '0', $phpAds_context, '');
  }

date_default_timezone_set($tz);

Then I added $phpAds_raw[html] to my header template where I wanted the banner to appear. In my case I just replaced the <ad ... /> tag I previously inserted when installing phpAdsNew vBulletin plugin.


* If you are using PHP4 then the code will be slightly different.
See: http://forum.openx.org/index.php?showtopic=503421161&pid=71517&st=0&#entr y71517

I originally didn't have the timezone code in on my forum and it was making my forum times show UTC. I found that post and can confirm it works.

Anyone know how to fix the MySQL errors. I get a couple errors every hour that are similar too:

Database error in vBulletin 3.7.3:

Invalid SQL:

			SELECT post.postid
			FROM post AS post
			
			WHERE post.threadid = 5560
				AND post.visible = 1
				
				
			ORDER BY post.dateline 
			LIMIT 0, 15;

MySQL Error   : Table 'openads.post' doesn't exist
Error Number  : 1146

Edit: I should note I had to remove the comments from the Invocation code to get it to work on my forum. The banners wouldn't appear until I did so.

[LWillmann]

Could that be the maintenance script that's run by OpenX? You might want to check into the maintenance queries that OpenX runs and see if there's something to it.

[slo_chewie]

Ha, you are correct. That error was from the Maintenance script.

Disabled the automatic maintenance, edited my previous openads cron to work with openx and it's all good now.

Edit: Nevermind disabled the maintenance script and I still get the errors. You are correct though it seems to be a cron or vbulletin task. Happens like clock work at 9, 29, and 49 minutes after every hour.

[Blackhat]

I just added this and it works, but am I supposed to get an sql error anytime soon ?