= vB Ad Management 2.1 =
What does it do?
A common template modification request is about how to insert advertisements between posts. This does that and allows you to control when it will appear and how it will look via the AdminCP.
Now also allows insertion of adverts into many locations throughout your forum. Features new to version 2.0 are highlighted in red.
Features
Global on/off
Turn the plugin on and off. (Exciting stuff!)
Displays ads with posts, single posts, announcements or private messages
Display advertisements with any form of user message.
v2.0 Displays ads in your header, footer and in a left or right column, with forum categories and with threads
As well as adverts only being previously displayed with threads, you can now include advertisements in all these locations via the AdminCP.
v2.0 Unlimited customisation at every advertisement location
Every ad location is templated and editable and also offers extensive customisation via the AdminCP. You can choose between static ad code (i.e. Adsense) or a random banner rotation at every location and can use individual code for each type at each location. Display settings below apply either globally and where appropriate to each individual location. Each location can be separately enabled or disabled and postbit advertisements (announcements, private messages, posts) can now also be separately enabled or disabled.
Include or exclude display of advertisements:
- Per Forum
- Per Usergroup
- Per Thread
- Per User
- Per Announcement or turn announcement ads on/off
- Private message ads on/off
v2.0 Exclude only:
- THIS_SCRIPT - Allows you to exclude pages from displaying ads based on content type, necessary for some TOS. See the setting explanation in the product AdminCP for more details.
Display using any combination of:
- Display with first post on a page
- Display with last post on a page
- Display every X posts
- Display with Xth post in a thread
- Minimum thread postcount before ads will be displayed
[*]v2.0 User postcount - after X posts advertisements will not be displayed.
Remove Ads link
Adds a link with ads to information about upgrading an account to remove advertisements. Custom link & link text, can be turned on/off.
v2.0 You can now also specify the "Sponsored Links" text yourself.
Display ads as user
Choose between displaying advertisments as a post (with optional custom avatar) and standard advertisement display.
Automatic postbit switch
The one-phrase template edit is the same no matter what your settings, you can change between any combination of postbit/postbit_legacy and display as user/standard display at any time and the style will automatically adjust itself.
Displays any code
Anything which can be copied and pasted into the text box will be displayed, HTML included of course.
v2.0 This applies to both the static and random banners. There is no limit to how many banners you can rotate, or filetype, nor for that matter does it even have to be a banner. It will randomly rotate any code you input. Note: It really IS random, so you may see the same banner twice in a row.
v2.0 Google Analytics integration
You can enter your Google Analytics code into vB Ad Management settings and it will be automatically inserted into every page. Aside from saving you a template edit, the analytics can this way be independently turned off.
XHTML valid.
Peace of mind...
Does not cause global warming.
Excellent.
Copyright notice
Ok not a feature, but I felt there is now enough substance as a product to add a link in the footer. If you would like to remove this please make a donation, details below. And be sure to let me know by PM!
This product is my work and mine alone. You are not permitted to distribute it outside of vbulletin.org, take credit for it, etc. Use your common sense and don't steal, basically. I have extremely effective legal recourse against thieves and fraud.
Location names
For ease of use, the locations are referred to by their template names. Once you know what they mean it's a lot clearer, here's a rundown for those who don't know.
Postbit - The postbit template is used to display posts, announcements and private messages.
Threadbit - The threadbit is the template for a single row when viewing a list of threads.
Forumbit - The forumbit is the template for a single row when viewing a list of forums/subforums.
Header - The template containing the logo at the top of your forum pages ONLY. The area immediately below that is the navbar template.
Footer - The template that contains everything at the bottom of your forum pages from the time downward.
Instructions
- Upload the product using the Product Manager.
- Go to Style Manager > Edit Templates and paste $postbit_advertisement at the bottom of your postbit & postbit_legacy templates.
- v2.0 Paste $forumbit_advertisement at the bottom of your forumhome_forumbit_level1_post and forumhome_forumbit_level2_post templates.
- v2.0 Paste $threadbit_advertisement at the bottom of your threadbit template.
- v2.0 Paste $footer_advertisement at the top of your footer template.
- v2.0 Find $spacer_close in your footer template and below it paste $rightcolumn_advertisement.
- v2.0 Find in your header template and replace it with $header_advertisement.
- v2.0 Find $spacer_open in your header template and below it paste $leftcolumn_advertisement.
Changing the settings
- v2.0 The AdminCP options where you can change your settings are located in vBulletin Options after all the rest of the setting categories.
- If you want to edit the templates for the advertisements yourself, they are located immediately after their postbit counterparts in the Template Manager list with the suffix "_advertisement". Do not alter any value in the template (that's a string of words or letters beginning with a $ sign) or your ads may stop working! I'll only support the unedited product.
Clicking Install
It's in the menu to the top right of this post underneath the list of tickboxes. I'm not being picky, this is the
only way I have of knowing how many people are using my product and whether or not it's worth developing further. It will also make sure you do not miss important updates or fixes, or major new features by sending you an email when they occur. So please be sure to click install!
Donations
If you have a pressing wish to donate money to me (and of course, you do) to say thank you and to possibly encourage more future work then you can do via the link below. Also, you will go to heaven.
http://redtyger.co.uk/donations.php
Don't panic! The donations link is only hosted on my website so it can be encrypted and not open my email address to spammers.
Screenshot
1. Postbit with display as user, custom avatar and Remove Ads text link enabled.
2. Postbit with ads displayed as standard, display as user disabled.
3. Postbit_legacy with display as user enabled, custom avatar disabled.
4. v2.0 Random ads (pictures of Bart Simpon in this case) in left & right columns, in the header and after the 1st thread on a page of threads (sticky threads aren't counted in the positions).
5. Positions of adverts in the archives.
Updates
9th Nov 2006 - Added link to thread for Product Manager & version check. No upgrade necessary.
v2.0 20th Nov 2006 - Version 2.0 released.
v2.0 20th Nov 2006 - Version 2.01 released.
Fixes bug where static header ads will not show up, plus minor instructions typo fix.
v2.0 21th Nov 2006 - Version 2.1 testing.
Fixes...me forgetting to update Usergroup & UserID permissions from v1.0
4th Dec 2006 - Version
v2.1 properly released.
New Features:
Advertisements in archives
Bugfixes:
Added archive functionality for advertisements
Fix Usergroup & UserID permissions as above.
Fix to Google Analytics causing footer problems.
Minor XHTML validation fix.
Minor optimisations.
Version 1.0 no longer included.
Known Issues
v2.0 Left/Right column alignment
The padding and alignment of the right and left columns (right column or both together especially) can vary a bit and look uneven. I used the code from vBulletin's Quick Tips section and could not improve upon it myself either so I'm afraid this is probably as good as it gets.
