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

[djsydeburnz]

i feel really dumb that i cant figure this out. im usually pretty good with this type of stuff. is PAN what i want if im just running banners on my site only? it seems as though when reading about zone's in pan, it is referring to multiple sites. if i put zone:1 in the header information, where in the pan setting to i reference the same? i guess im just more confused since it was working fine until i tried adding a google adsense and then they all went away. it keeps wanting to display the default banner which it doesnt even display. argh.......

[Skyline_GT]

Originally Posted by Skyline_GT

the if statment for usergroup doesn't work...

Can anyone answer my question?

[DataAve]

Smacks the install button.

[SVZ]

if you use this mod does it still get blocked by Norton Internet Security ad blocker?

[The M.I.P.]

@toxin, tgmorris:
Normally, phpAdsNew should run fine using a separate DB. Please give me some time to check what could have gone wrong...

@djsydeburnz:
When logged in as admin in phpAdsNew, you can add zones (don't forget to allow clients to use these zones). You can think of zones as a name for the location where a banner can be placed.

@Skyline_GT:
Did you use template conditionals or did you try to distinguish between several usergroups using keywords in phpAdsNew?

@SVZ:
You can't control any client-side filtering a user might do.
To complicate blocking banners, don't use keywords like "ad" or "banner" in your advertisement URLs and try to avoid standard banner sizes (e.g. 468x60).
This product encloses the ads delivered by phpAdsNew with a <!-- BEGIN/END ad --> HTML comment - you might want to remove this.

[yayvb]

I know that this makes me seem retarded and I know that this type of question is meant for the phpadsnew website, but please answer it here for me.

I fresh install phpadsnew, setup admin, setup advertising account (and upload a banner), even publisher account to try to get this working.
I download/install product (.xml file attached to this thread)
I updated the local location of pypadsnew in vb admincp.
I edit my header template to show <ad what="zone:1" />

No banner shows. How do I know which zone? I don't see a name or number point to which zone. Did I have to setup an advertising account and publisher account, all i want is to upload my own banner so when other people run out of credits my banners display.

I assumed I should create a publisher account so that I can get the code, but I was able to get the code I think without out. Plus the template variable <ad what="zone:1" /> is supposed to replace the code?

Just a little push, I think I'm almost there.

Thanks

[yayvb]

Originally Posted by djsydeburnz

i feel really dumb that i cant figure this out. im usually pretty good with this type of stuff. is PAN what i want if im just running banners on my site only? it seems as though when reading about zone's in pan, it is referring to multiple sites. if i put zone:1 in the header information, where in the pan setting to i reference the same? i guess im just more confused since it was working fine until i tried adding a google adsense and then they all went away. it keeps wanting to display the default banner which it doesnt even display. argh.......

I'm having a bit of trouble myself, but zones usually (and in this case) refer to certain sections of your site that these ads will display in. Some people may only want to advertise in a marijuana or x-rated zone, etc. or even a header zone or sidebar zone, etc.

[yayvb]

No one knows why the variable I mentioned (2 posts above this one) isn't working for me? Like I mentioned, I think I did everything correctly. Any help would be appreciated, I would like to get these ads displaying.

Thanks in advance.

[DomP]

Did U try to get it to work without the plugin first ?

If not, create an invocation code (java) copy and paste that somewhere in your header template and see if its works.

Then start fiddling with this

[Xstreamist]

Still waiting to get assistance with my problem here... Banners aren't rotating and wont show up when I try to put them in my header...?? I got some pretty P'ed off sponsors right now.