phpAds - Adminstrator's Guide

phpAds is a banner management and tracking system written in PHP.
Homepage: http://phpwizard.net/phpAds/

General Information

Please read the INSTALL file for installation instructions.

phpAds is split into three parts:

  1. An administration interface, accessible through http://<yourdomain>/<PathToPhpAds>/admin/
  2. A web interface for your clients, accessible through http://<yourdomain>/<PathToPhpAds>/client/
  3. A backend, which handles banner display and logging and sends statistics to your clients via email

The Admin Interface

Through this web based control center, you can manage your clients and their banners. It also allows to view statistics for individual clients.

The Client Interface

Usually, you'll give the URL of the client interface to your clients so that they can track the adviews/adclicks of their banners. As you can associate a username/password with each client, a client is only able to view information belonging to her banners.

The Backend

As an adminstrator you need to familiarize yourself with phpAds' backend structure. phpAds gives you two options to include a banner on your site: local mode and remote invocation. It is recommended to use the first method where possible.

Local Mode

This is the tradtional style of a including a banner within a PHP3-powered website. On every page you want to have a banner, you have to include config.inc.php3 and view.inc.php3. These files are in your phpAds-installation-directory (which should be in your include_path). Banner are displayed using the view()-function. This function has the following syntax:

string view (mixed what [, int clientID [, string target [, bool withText = 0]]]);

  • The argument "what" is currently one of the following:
    • [int]: Display the banner with this bannerID. Example: view(1);
    • "[width]x[height]: Display a randomly selected banner with this width/height. Example: view("468x60");
    • "html": Display a randomly selected HTML-banner
    • "[keyword]": Display a randomly selected banner with this keyword associated to it. Example: view("maingroup");
      Note: Banners with the special keyword "global" associated to them, are also considered when using this syntax.
  • The optional argument clientID allows you to retrieve only banners by a specific client. Specify "" to view banners from all clients (in case you need the third or fourth argument, else don't specify it at all). Example: view("468x60", 1).
  • The optional argument "target" allows you to specify a frame target (may be one of "[framename]", "_blank", "_parent" and "_top"). Example: view("maingroup", 0, "_blank");
  • The optional argument withText allows you to show a banner with its associated line of text below it (for example, "Suport our sponsor" is a common line of text). Example: view("maingroup", "", "", 1);

Some examples:

  • view(1); - Displays the banner with the bannerID of 1.
  • view("html"); - Displays a randomly selected HTML banner
  • view("468x60", 0, "_blank"); - Displays a randomly selected banner with a width of 468 pixels and a height of 60 pixels. If user clicks on it, the target destination will be opened in a new window.
  • view("Websites/Business/New_Media/"); - Displays a randomly selected banner from the group "Websites/Business/New_Media/" (in other words: with that keyword).

A sample HTML file could look like this:

<?
 require("/usr/local/etc/phpAds/config.inc.php3"); 
 require("/usr/local/etc/phpAds/view.inc.php3"); 
?> 
  
<html>
    <head> 
      <title>phpAds demo</title>
    </head>
  <body>
    <?
      view("468x60");
    ?>
  </body>
</html>

Remote Invocation

It is also possible to use phpAds on sites which lack PHP3-support. Random or pre-defined banners can be shown using a standard <img>-construct. Just like in Local Mode, you can use the "what" argument to select the banner. It wouldn't make sense to use "html" though.
Examples:

  • <a href="click.php3"><img src="phpads.php3?what=468x60"></a> - Show a randomly selected banner of the size 468x60.
  • <a href="click.php3"><img src="phpads.php3?what=main"></a> - Show a randomly selected banner fro the "main" group.
Remote Invocation currently supports only one banner per page.

The mail.php3 File

This file is responsible for sending statistics to your clients (via email) and for disabling banners which have no adviews left. You should execute it daily, for example from Cron. For more instructions, please refer to INSTALL.