vBulletin LTS

Using PHPadsnew 2 with Vbulletin 3.

by Michael Morris 31 Jan 2005

The following are some tips on using these two programs together, based on my own experience. It's expected that you know how to use phpadsnew 2 to set up ads and generate invocation code.

PHP Invocation
The first tip is how to use php invocation code. Using javascript is possible, but not all browsers support javascript and, in my experience, using php is faster.

The php invocation code phpadsnew generates will look something like this...

PHP Code:


<?php

    if (@include(getenv('DOCUMENT_ROOT').'/phpads/phpadsnew.inc.php')) {

        if (!isset($phpAds_context)) $phpAds_context = array();

        $phpAds_raw = view_raw ('zone:2', 0, '', '', '0', $phpAds_context);

        echo $phpAds_raw['html'];

    }

?>

Place it in your PHPINCLUDE_START template, but omit the final echo statement and the <?php ?> tags. It will look like this...

PHP Code:


    if (@include(getenv('DOCUMENT_ROOT').'/phpads/phpadsnew.inc.php')) {

        if (!isset($phpAds_context)) $phpAds_context = array();

        $phpAds_raw = view_raw ('zone:2', 0, '', '', '0', $phpAds_context);

    }

Now, to place the add, put the variable $phpAds_raw[html] in any template that you want that ad to appear (usually your header). Remember to omit the '' marks when placing the variable in a normal template - therefore $phpAds_raw['html'] becomes $phpAds_raw[html]

If you have multiple zones, you can string these together. On EN World we have a zone that only appears on our vbadvanced news page. On those pages we call the view_raw function an additional time for the extra zone (view_raw is the function that actually calls up the ad - the rest of the code initializes phpadsnew). Here's our code, as an example of a 2 zone system.

PHP Code:


if (@include(getenv('DOCUMENT_ROOT').'/phpads/phpadsnew.inc.php')) 

{

    if (!isset($phpAds_context)) 

    {

        $phpAds_context = array();

        $phpAds_raw = view_raw ('zone:2', 0, '', '', '0', $phpAds_context);

        if (defined('VBA_PORTAL'))

        {

            $phpAds_context2 = array();

            $phpAds_raw2 = view_raw ('zone:3', 0, '', '', '0', $phpAds_context2);

        }

    }

}

Running Maintenance.php from the scheduled task manager
Ads new's maintenance.php file needs to run on a regular basis for it to perform correctly. You can invoke it from your scheduled task manager if you wish. If you do, I'd advise applying the following mod to the code of the maintenance.php file.

Open it and go to the ending ?> mark. Right about it add this.

PHP Code:


log_cron_action('PHP Ads New Maintenance Complete', $nextitem);

And you're done. The file can now log it's cron action with vbulletin's cron manager. Note that if you make this change you will be unable to call the maintenance.php file without vbulletin since it will trigger a fatal error (call to undefined function). Also, there's a glitch in phpadsnew - when vbulletin invokes maintenance.php it somehow forgets that it was ever invoked. The log files both in vbulletin and in phpadsnew itself speak differently, but phpadsnew continues to echo a message saying the maintenance.php script hasn't been ran which can be ignored.

Any other tips/comments/questions welcomed.

PHP Ads New 2 is at http://www.phpadsnew

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