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

[dholt]

vb 3.8.3
openx 2.8 -

1. I did what stardotstar said Above

2. I set up website and campaign and uploaded banner and

Linked them together

3. Set up zone = zone name Header

Added this too the header Template were I wanted the banner <ad what="Header" />

when I hit save I get a blank page and it won't save the code.

Then I tried to use the java tag invocation code and it saved but nothing displayed.

I need just a little more help getting this to work. Thanks

[dholt]

Ok fixed as it works good now

chang to the full path in Plugins & Products-Plugin Manager-Product : phpAdsNew Integration-init_startup and edit

find phpadsnew.inc.php

and ad the full path

 'http://www.mysite.org/openx/phpadsnew.inc.php'

the foolbar thingy didn't work so I added the java tag invocation code

which you can find under inventory/zones/ invocation code

drop down menu selct java

and it showed up fine I am so jumping with joy right now woot woot.

Now I'm off to forumhome template hopefully I'm on a roll

[dholt]

I have a new problem on forumhome as the banner dispalys under the navbar on the left.

what I need is it to display on the left be side the forums.

what can I do too re size the forums to give me a left column on forum home so it displays left of the forums.

[Dennis B]

star,

Thanks a million for this, should work perfectly. The only question I have left is if the modification you suggested will take the actual zone file in the server and read it or just implement a standard. I'm asking this because of daylight savings time adjustments that tend to move around quite a bit from year to year.

Thanks again,

[stardotstar]

Dennis - you need to specify the actual TZ in this work around. Like - Australia/Sydney - so daylight saving would only be invoked if openX is able to auto detect daylight saving time - I know many systems do but not sure of openX. So no, it does not read the server zone file - but that should be easy enough to do by using the php TZ variable.

dholt - I would look into the template/style forums - I'm not much more than a hack at layout and css stuff... I use USC (Ultimate Side Columns) for my side banners, otherwise you can adjust the widths in the template controls in ACP.

[baerwurz]

I use vbadvanced on every threadpage on the right sidebar. I will setup a module in the right sidebar which shows a large Rectangle Ad.

I have about 17.000 Threads in the most of them i want to show the same banner. But in around 100 Threads i want to show 100 different Banners.

Say for the Nokia E71 Thread, i want to show a Nokia E71 banner which links into the right place on our shop.
In the Iphone 3 GS Thread i want to show a banner with Iphone 3 Gs which links in the Iphone Section in our shop etc...

Is this possible with this mod?

[LWillmann]

Originally Posted by baerwurz

I use vbadvanced on every threadpage on the right sidebar. I will setup a module in the right sidebar which shows a large Rectangle Ad.

I have about 17.000 Threads in the most of them i want to show the same banner. But in around 100 Threads i want to show 100 different Banners.

Say for the Nokia E71 Thread, i want to show a Nokia E71 banner which links into the right place on our shop.
In the Iphone 3 GS Thread i want to show a banner with Iphone 3 Gs which links in the Iphone Section in our shop etc...

Is this possible with this mod?

People had issues with the newer versions of vB and this version of the mod. I got it to work, and detailed how I did it in earlier posts. However, the later versions of OpenX have gotten slower and slower and really bogged my server down, so I have gone away from their package completely.

Thinking back, if you new the banner ID that you wanted to refer to, or created a group showing a bunch of iPhone banners, then you could call banners for that group when in the iPhone section of your site directly. The same goes for the Nokia. But you'd have to do it by either referring to that particular banner, or that group and randomly selecting a banner from the group. But what you're asking can be done.

[stardotstar]

I have done some simple placement of the banner invocation in the templates using the places where the existing ad hooks are for vB itself - and inserted some simple conditionals that delivery a particular zone if a forum is a particular ID...

I should mention that if you can use the localmode invocation and the openX is on the localhost it is much much faster than if you do a javascript call, but LWillmann is right there is a considerable load to sustain if your site is delivering massive page refreshes.

I keep an eye on this thread becasue I am trying to get the flash banners to work since I completely rely on this hack to deliver my commercial content on my site and in the absence of a better alternative that I can readily transition to I am needing it to be as good as possible.

[Anne Lise]

Can this please be changed to be compatibel with the 4.0-version?

[stardotstar]

I am sure it can be - but who would do that I am not sure. I am not on 4 and have not yet even begun to get my head around ensuring that my mods and hacks will transition. :ugh:

BTW I have the flash components working by building in a script call that defines the flashplayer - this is documented in one of my other threads here - and is a solution contributed by another member here who found it on OpenX forums.

Happy New Year all.
W