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    • Where are my banners?

    Posted by savesheep

    Hello! I'm very new with TikiWiki...almost 4 hours old? I've turned on the 'banners' feature, and added a banner...but it isn't showing up anywhere on my site. Where should it show up?

    Thanks!!!

    Reads: 1042
    Posted by cgc0202

    Hi,

    Without any details about what you have done, it is difficult to say exactly why your banner would not show. Assuming you have done everything in the set up correctly (time, banner code etc.) in the Admin banner section, and made the appropriate module for the banner, you are not yet done.

    There are at least three general sections where you can place your banner. The first, and the most common place is near the top below the site logo. You can do this by accessing Admin home, then select "Site Identiy". Near the bottom there is a section: "Site ads and banners", check the box. In there you have to add your specific banner code: Example: . You also have to check the "publish" box to have your banner appear at the top.


    You may also place "ads" in the left or right columns, by using the Admin module option.

    Note that based from the above, although I have not tested it yet, it is possible to have multiple combinations of ads and banner, if you want to. Unlike traditional banners or ads, it does not seem that the size of the banners or ads are restricted.

    Bear in mind also that he above options will appear only if you have specified in specific Admin sections whether the above sections will appear, in the first place. For example, an "ad" will not appear on the right, if in the Admin "Features", you indicated that the "right" column will not appear (see General Layout options). Still in the layout section, if you checked the "Layout per section" make sure that in specific section, the site where you placed your "ad or banner" also is checked.

    Lastly, if you checked accordingly, each specific banner is date and time sensitive.

    I hope others will help clarify the above, because it is just an inference from initial trial and error, and not based from extensive experience using the option. Please let me know what you will get from the above.

    Honestly, I have not fully tested the feature itself because I am not at this stage in place ads or banners in my website. There is another potential use of the banner that I wanted to explore.

    cgc0202


    Posted by savesheep

    That is awesome man. I do appreciate it. But is there a way I can place it maybe at the bottom of all my pages instead of the top? I actually don't have that page enabled to be shown. Make sense?

    Thanks!
    -Sheep

    Posted by cgc0202

    Hi Sheep,

    I wish I knew the answer to that. I have just tried the "ads & banners" feature myself, and what I shared with you is the extent of what I found so far.

    I have the same question as you ask but in a more general way:

    Is it possible to place an "ad or a banner" at any other place on the page?

    Moving a module or having multiple versions of a module all over the place is doable with the Dynamic Content System (DCS) feature so this should be doable also with banners . [Some other softwares featuring "ads and banner" modules have that flexibility, I do not see any reason why it cannot be done with Tikiwiki. Maybe it just needs some hacking??? Or something.]

    Actually, I explored the "Banner" feature mainly because at the current stage of my understanding of the DCS Feature , the latter does not have the complex but very useful time-date and what I call "recirculation" capabilities of banners. I wish DCS has the latter features; as I wish "Banners" has the portability of DCS in terms of placement. I presented that in Banners vs DCS Features.

    Please explore further if you can move "Banners" around, and let me know if you find an answer to our similar questions regarding this feature. This may just require hacking the scripts, or adding its script in another section of the other templates. I do not know how to do this yet though.

    cgc0202

    Posted by Gary Cunningham-Lee

    > Hi Sheep,
    >
    > I wish I knew the answer to that. I have just tried the "ads & banners" feature myself, and what I shared with you is the extent of what I found so far.
    >
    > I have the same question as you ask but in a more general way:
    >
    > Is it possible to place an "ad or a banner" at any other place on the page?

    The banner zone tag can be put in any template, so you can have it in the top bar (tiki-topbar.tpl), bottom bar (tiki-botbar.tpl), or tiki.tpl to place the banner in the midsection of the page (at the risk of elbowing into the column display area). Since the tag is placed in templates, you can also add it specifically to one Tiki feature's pages, such as the Directory or Blogs. It does take a bit of understanding of what a template file is doing, in order to put the tag in the right place, but shouldn't take long to figure that out. Put it at the very top or bottom or just outside of a "section".

    Secondly, banners can be put in modules. In this way they can either go in the left or right column, or into one or more wiki pages via the module plugin.

    I haven't tested banners much recently but this is the designed behavior. What other placement flexibility are you looking for?

    > Moving a module or having multiple versions of a module all over the place is doable with the Dynamic Content System (DCS) feature so this should be doable also with banners

    It's probably dangerous to make this kind of assumption. 😉 If different people made the features, using different code/approaches, they might well work differently.

    > [Some other softwares featuring "ads and banner" modules have that flexibility, I do not see any reason why it cannot be done with Tikiwiki. Maybe it just needs some hacking??? Or something.]

    The flexibility is already there, I believe.

    -- Gary - zukakakina.comQuestion

    Posted by cgc0202

    Thanks Gary,

    In response to:

    " Is it possible to place an "ad or a banner" at any other place on the page?"

    You stated:

    ''" The banner zone tag can be put in any template, so you can have it in the top bar (tiki-topbar.tpl), bottom bar (tiki-botbar.tpl), or tiki.tpl to place the banner in the midsection of the page (at the risk of elbowing into the column display area). Since the tag is placed in templates, you can also add it specifically to one Tiki feature's pages, such as the Directory or Blogs. It does take a bit of understanding of what a template file is doing, in order to put the tag in the right place, but shouldn't take long to figure that out. Put it at the very top or bottom or just outside of a "section".

    Secondly, banners can be put in modules. In this way they can either go in the left or right column, or into one or more wiki pages via the module plugin.

    I haven't tested banners much recently but this is the designed behavior. What other placement flexibility are you looking for?"''



    I worked with the Dynamic Content System (DCS) first based from your suggestions in Dynamic Contents and Ephemerides. I will respond to the features of DCS in another postQuestion but basically what I found was that I could place a DCS "module", e.g., , anywhere directly on a "page content file".

    Without much documentation about banners, I assumed that I could do the same also with banners, i.e., place a banner module, e.g., , anywhere directly on a "page content file". The latter did not work. [I enumerated what worked already in my previous response to Sheep so I will not repeat it here.]

    After reviewing and trying what you suggested I found that a banner module, e.g., , may be added through the "body of the page" mainly through the main template scripts, i.e., the "tpl" files. Correct me, if I am mistaken, but I do not think a banner module, e.g., , can be added directly to the templates prepared through "Content templates" (tiki-admin_content_templates.php). There might be a way around this, but I have not had a chance to explore that yet.




    I reviewed your response in Dynamic Contents and Ephemerides. For the script of your personal websiteQuestion, you stated that you added:

    (div)
    (table width=100% border=0)(tr)(td)

    (/td)(/tr)(/table)

    (/div)

    where I see only one banner module, i.e., . It appears however that there are at least three randomized banner modules in your personal websiteQuestion, in the same location. Unless I missed it, I do not see any feature in the Admin "Banner modules script" that would specify such a randomization procedure. For your webpage, is the randomization itself done through some sort of "php or some other forms of scripting in the "Select ONE method for the banner" options, or some other ways?


    To rephrase, for following series of images and corresponding associated caption and text:

    • Banner 1a:
      --(img src="/image folder 1/flower1.jpg")
      --associated caption and text1

    • Banner 1b:
      --(img src="/image folder 2/animal1.jpg")
      --associated caption and text2

    • Banner 1c:
      --(img src="/image folder 3/plantl1.jpg")
      --associated caption and text3

    • How can the above images and assoicated captions and text be randomized, in the same location, using the a single banner module?
    • Is there a way to get a copy of the revised theme and revised scripts needed to create your personal websiteQuestion?
      [Note: I do not plan to use the theme colors or layout, I just wish to see what "php and tpl" files had been revised and how these files have been simplified to achieve the non-standard wiki appearance.]


    Finally, I assumed in your personal websiteQuestion, you have to create a unique modified "tiki-view_articles page" and the corresponding "tiki-view_articles.tpl" to introduce the specific DCS and banner modules that will appear exclusively in the aforementioned page?

    • Does this mean that if I want to have unique banners for let us say for example, the "arts" vs "literature" sections, I need to have corresponding unique "php" and "tpl" for each of these sections?


    To avoid confusion, I presented my follow-up about DCS in the separate thread Banners vs DCS FeaturesQuestion.

    Thanks again.

    cgc0202


    Posted by Gary Cunningham-Lee

    ...

    > Without much documentation about banners, I assumed that I could do the same also with banners, i.e., place a banner module, e.g., , anywhere directly on a "page content file". The latter did not work. [I enumerated what worked already in my previous response to Sheep so I will not repeat it here.]

    >

    > After reviewing and trying what you suggested I found that a banner module, e.g., , may be added through the "body of the page" mainly through the main template scripts, i.e., the "tpl" files.


    Not only may be, but must be. Apart from in modules, template files are the only place banner tags can go.

    >Correct me, if I am mistaken, but I do not think a banner module, e.g., , can be added directly to the templates prepared through "Content templates" (tiki-admin_content_templates.php). There might be a way around this, but I have not had a chance to explore that yet.


    I edit templates locally and then ftp them to my Tiki sites. I assume Tiki's template-editing feature will produce the same results. There's nothing special about the banner tags that would prevent them from being added.

    > ... It appears however that there are at least three randomized banner modules... in the same location. Unless I missed it, I do not see any feature in the Admin "Banner modules script" that would specify such a randomization procedure. For your webpage, is the randomization itself done through some sort of "php or some other forms of scripting in the "Select ONE method for the banner" options, or some other ways?

    If more than one banner is specified to appear in a particular banner zone, then the banners will be displayed randomly in that zone. Nothing else is needed.

    > ...
    >
    > *Is there a way to get a copy of the revised theme and revised scripts needed to create your personal websiteQuestion?
    > +[Note: I do not plan to use the theme colors or layout, I just wish to see what "php and tpl" files had been revised and how these files have been simplified to achieve the non-standard wiki appearance.]

    There's nothing else special about my files. The only change I made related to banners is the tag addition as I already showed (and adding a maximum-articles integer rather than having the php file get it from Tiki config). The rest of the files are stock.

    > Finally, I assumed in your personal website, you have to create a unique modified "tiki-view_articles page" and the corresponding "tiki-view_articles.tpl" to introduce the specific DCS and banner modules that will appear exclusively in the aforementioned page?

    I could have just modified the tiki-view_articles.tpl file and used that for the site index, but wanted a specific index page, so I renamed the modified articles file. This wasn't necessary as far as the banner tag is concerned.

    > *Does this mean that if I want to have unique banners for let us say for example, the "arts" vs "literature" sections, I need to have corresponding unique "php" and "tpl" for each of these sections?

    No, not necessarily. But one question is what is the difference between those two sections, in terms of Tiki's template files? Tiki doesn't distinguish between content topics on the template level. The banner tags go in, for example, your (one) view_articles template. To display banners according to, say, specific Categories, rather than Tiki feature/sections (e.g., Articles or Forums), some other way is needed, like in a module in wiki pages. Do you see what I mean? tiki-view_articles.tpl doesn't know what those articles are about, so can't be used to display a particular banner accordingly. On the other hand, a particular wiki page does have specific content, so you could have a module that displays a particular banner.

    (The view_articles tpl file could be modified to display only one article topic and also have a banner tag to display a particular banner. Then you'd have "tiki-view_arts_articles.tpl" and "tiki-view_arts_articles.php files. You could check the "Find Tiki Experts" page for somebody to do this if you like.)

    -- Gary - zukakakina.comQuestion

    Posted by cgc0202

    Thanks Gary,

    And sorry if I did not respond immediately. I had to try some of those you suggested. I was indeed able to do randomization using the "Tiki way", and I could do that now. I thought, however it is not the most efficient nor the most elegant way of doing it.

    I am familiar with a number of pic randomization procedures but many require their own databases or just as cumbersome.

    This thread is already a bit long, so I will post my findings in the other thread that you respondedto.

    Thanks.

    cgc0202