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Banner Rotater

Oh man I am going to ask such an unfair question. Do you have a guess on the release date?

I can release it now if you like, it is quite usable, but things I want in place are not there as of yet. For example, right now you need to set each ad location's options, and then hit save (for each location). Not a big deal if you have them already set up and want to change one location's options. But for a first install, I want a global save in place. Not difficult to add, it just isn't a priority at this point. Another example: each ad you selected as available shows the banner, the banner name, and if it is active. You then need to click that ad to see the details of how you have it set-up. Those details I want available in the banner list (again, not difficult to do), to allow you to see all banners you have and how you have them set up at a quick glance instead of clicking each one to see.

I also want to add in a Strict Mode option for each ad location. This will ensure you can not select (for example) a tower banner to show in the logo block, or a full banner to show in the side block, etc. I already have a part of it in place and would like to finish it before release, but it isn't really necessary; just a nice to have feature so that those who use this add-on can not accidentally break the layout of their site.

I know some members here want this released as soon as possible, and I will be releasing it when groupings are completed or earlier if they (or the above mentioned) are not all that important to you, :)
 
This is one of the things I am waiting for to switch my board over! (well that, tapatalk, and Xenforo to go stable)
 
I can release it now if you like, it is quite usable, but things I want in place are not there as of yet. For example, right now you need to set each ad location's options, and then hit save (for each location). Not a big deal if you have them already set up and want to change one location's options. But for a first install, I want a global save in place. Not difficult to add, it just isn't a priority at this point. Another example: each ad you selected as available shows the banner, the banner name, and if it is active. You then need to click that ad to see the details of how you have it set-up. Those details I want available in the banner list (again, not difficult to do), to allow you to see all banners you have and how you have them set up at a quick glance instead of clicking each one to see.

I also want to add in a Strict Mode option for each ad location. This will ensure you can not select (for example) a tower banner to show in the logo block, or a full banner to show in the side block, etc. I already have a part of it in place and would like to finish it before release, but it isn't really necessary; just a nice to have feature so that those who use this add-on can not accidentally break the layout of their site.

I know some members here want this released as soon as possible, and I will be releasing it when groupings are completed or earlier if they (or the above mentioned) are not all that important to you, :)

I still struggle with being patient :)
 
Patience is a virtue, this is true.

When you are ready Lawrence, I am sure we will all appreciate it, but I for one don't think any of the things you have said you would like to add or change, would be what I call "essential" I am sure most experienced admins could work out not to put a tower in the top or a banner on the side, and manually adding and saving one location at a time seems reasonable to me.

:)
 
Patience is a virtue, this is true.

When you are ready Lawrence, I am sure we will all appreciate it, but I for one don't think any of the things you have said you would like to add or change, would be what I call "essential" I am sure most experienced admins could work out not to put a tower in the top or a banner on the side, and manually adding and saving one location at a time seems reasonable to me.

:)

I'll release a copy today or tomorrow for testing purposes only. I installed/uninstalled this thing so many times that I can honestly say, setting each location one at a time is a huge pain, :p I really wanted to have the above mentioned code in place before I released it, but I do need a wider user-base than myself for testing things out. Groups won't be done (though you will see an option in place in the Locations menu on how they should be handled), neither will views. Ad Tools menu will be displayed, but as this is where groups will be created, and reports generated based on total time and views, there will be nothing in that particular menu.

Ads (banners) now automatically expire after x amount of days. When you view the ad in the adminCP the amount of days left is shown. This is one thing I wanted to have displayed in the list of banners (with other details, for the sake of convenience). This setting must be set to 1 day or more (up to 365).

Banners can now over-ride the location's time that you have set to fetch a new ad. This setting for each banner is in minutes, and must be 1 minute or more for it to over-ride the location's time (max is 1440 minutes - 1 day).

Groupings and tracking of total display time and views I'll work on throughout the holidays.
 
I'm testing now. Lawrence sent me a private copy for pre-testing, it is not in this thread yet.

Suggestion: "Days to Remain Active:" = 0, if possible, and if it is easy, could that be the 'forever' value? Right now 0 results in the ad not being used at all. Or any other way to have the setting be 'forever'?

Reason: If the admin (me) forgets to maintain that, then the ads disappear. And if there are enough ads to manage then the missing banners may not be found for quite sometime. That has happened before when I used a different program, needed to refund money, and the person placing the ad was quite upset.
 
I'm testing now. Lawrence sent me a private copy for pre-testing, it is not in this thread yet.

Suggestion: "Days to Remain Active:" = 0, if possible, and if it is easy, could that be the 'forever' value? Right now 0 results in the ad not being used at all. Or any other way to have the setting be 'forever'?

Reason: If the admin (me) forgets to maintain that, then the ads disappear. And if there are enough ads to manage then the missing banners may not be found for quite sometime. That has happened before when I used a different program, needed to refund money, and the person placing the ad was quite upset.

I did the count down that way so ads can be sorted in the Manage Ads page by remaining time (expired ads first), and for the Reports: "The following Ads will expire in 7 days.....". (to help Admins keep track if Sponsors purchase a 1 month package or 6 month one, etc.). I could add in an option to over-ride this and keep an ad from ever expiring, or change the max days to equal ten years?

The Manage Ads page will also (eventually) display where the Ad is being displayed, and how it is configured. Quick glances are a lot more user friendly than clicking each one to take a peek. :)

As the copy I am going to release is for testing, and I know a couple of you need something to display Sponsors ads as soon as possible, those who are interested can PC me their email address and I'll send the zip file to you. I rather do it this way until the product is suitable (to me) for public release.
 
I did the count down that way so ads can be sorted in the Manage Ads page by remaining time (expired ads first), and for the Reports: "The following Ads will expire in 7 days.....". (to help Admins keep track if Sponsors purchase a 1 month package or 6 month one, etc.). I could add in an option to over-ride this and keep an ad from ever expiring, or change the max days to equal ten years?

The Manage Ads page will also (eventually) display where the Ad is being displayed, and how it is configured. Quick glances are a lot more user friendly than clicking each one to take a peek. :)

As the copy I am going to release is for testing, and I know a couple of you need something to display Sponsors ads as soon as possible, those who are interested can PC me their email address and I'll send the zip file to you. I rather do it this way until the product is suitable (to me) for public release.
Bold 1 - now that I know the reasoning, please don't change it... but somehow indicate what the max value. xxx months?

Bold 2 - that would be awesome! :)
 
Dumb question, but how do you determine the forum.nodeid? I'm using a very simple way which I thought was correct in...
PHP:
<xen:if is="{$forum.node_id} == 2">

But that value is null. I suspect the node_id isn't available where I'm trying to get it, the logo_block template.
 

No, that way will not work as there could be dozens of node ids, and parent node ids. You also need to take into consideration the Node Type. The code determines the type of Node, and based on the type looks to see if the node id is located somewhere within the parent and child node id's. This way, you can have different node types as parent/children of other types, and the ad will display accordingly.

Puntocom: thanks for the error report. One of the checks not in place was to check for an empty string when selecting to upload a banner from your PC. It never concerned me to this point as I always selected a banner to upload to check the function. I placed the check in. :)

I redid the Manage Ad Locations. I never liked how it was implemented. Now all the location settings are shown in the locations list. This way you can quickly see how each ad location is set, and select the one you want to change.
 
No, that way will not work as there could be dozens of node ids, and parent node ids.p
Well, it works for the quick and dirty I want to use it for. If there's a better way, I haven't been able to find it yet.
 
Well, it works for the quick and dirty I want to use it for. If there's a better way, I haven't been able to find it yet.

That way will work if you know the node type and node ID. :) My answer given above is for this add-on. When an Admin selects which node ID to display a particular Sponsors ad, the add-on needs to check what type the Node Id is (page, category, forum, Link Forum), and then look for any child ID's based on type, so it can serve the ad when a visitor is in any of the child nodes of the selected node ID.
 
Love it. Works great for me!

Thanks, :)

But that is because you didn't hit the right set-up that caused the nodeId being viewed not to display the correct ad after the appropriate (for that nodeId) ad's time expired. Fixed it today, :p I also added a width and height max size that admins can set for each location, to prevent a Full ad (for example) from displaying in the sidebar, or left and right tower ad locations. This check can be ignored, of course.

It really bothers me how tower ads are displayed in the AdminCP. I think I'll hide the banner itself if over a certain height and have a click-me to view.
 
Thanks, :)

But that is because you didn't hit the right set-up that caused the nodeId being viewed not to display the correct ad after the appropriate (for that nodeId) ad's time expired. Fixed it today, :p I also added a width and height max size that admins can set for each location, to prevent a Full ad (for example) from displaying in the sidebar, or left and right tower ad locations. This check can be ignored, of course.

It really bothers me how tower ads are displayed in the AdminCP. I think I'll hide the banner itself if over a certain height and have a click-me to view.

Here is a dumb question. What is a tower ad? I am assuming they are ads that show up under the forum stats thingy?
 
Here is a dumb question. What is a tower ad? I am assuming they are ads that show up under the forum stats thingy?
The ones on the left/right that show up on every page. Here is a screen shot of my test forum.
*Lovely* banners, eh?

edit: the top most ads in each screen shot is "Logo Block", the ad below Whats New is the "above Breadcrumb", the ones on the extreme left/right is "Left Side of Page" and "Right Side of Page", and the bottom most ad is the Footer.


Main Forum - XenForoB5_1293232140255.webp


And here is a screen shot of the list of forums, the red squarish ad is the "Sidebar" location.

XenForoB5_1293232161195.webp
 
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