Multiple user ad management plugin
I am proud to announce the release of our first plugin, Multiuser ad management for the WordPress platform. The plugin is ideal for blogs with multiple authors and acts as an incentive for making quality posts. When the add-on is enabled, users will have full control over the advertisements displayed on their own posts. Using a space preallocated by the blog administrator, authors will be able to display various forms of advertisements in addition to accepting Paypal donations. This, in turn will also motivate writers to increase the frequency and quality of posts in order to reach a higher popularity and maximize the ability to monetize. Since this is our first attempt at a WordPress plugin, the installation process is still a bit rough. In this post, I will take you through the entire installation and configuration process (it’s rather short) to make implementation as easy as possible. We truly hope you enjoy using the plugin. Depending on the popularity, new features will continuously be added as needed by our users.
Download Links (July 24, 2010):
i) Sourceforge ii) WordPress.org
Unless otherwise stated, the plugin on this site is provided “as-is,” without any express or implied warranty. In no event shall Ravall be held liable for any damages arising from the use of the software. Please backup your blog before installation to ensure no data loss occurs.
Features:
- Ability to change advertisement settings through a graphical interface on the fly.
- Users can display image ads, input their own <HTML> codes (with admin verification), or accept donations by entering their Paypal account. With respect to image ads, users can also specify a time limit until the advertisement expires.
- As an added layer of security, the plugin will not be seen by users with a subscriber status. Since users with the power to post on your blog are typically trusted, the worry of misuse should be minimized. Despite this, we have sanitized all the inputs besides the Code textarea. To eliminate it’s misuse, the field is disabled until access is granted by an administrator.
Installation:
- The installation process is rather simple and starts with the extraction of the multiauthors folder from the RAR archive. In order to extract the folder, you will need a program such as Winrar.
- Without changing anything (Not even the folder name), place the extracted multiauthor folder into the plugins directory of your WordPress installation.
- Login to the administrative panel of the WordPress installation and activate the plugin. At this point in time, a MU Ad management option should appear on the admin navigation bar. This option will be visible to authors on your blog as well.
- In order to actually display the ads, we need to call the function: <?php mu_sidebar(get_the_author_id()); ?>. Wherever this function is placed, the ad will show. As you may be able to tell, on Ravall.com we have included this function at the bottom of the sidebar.
After following the steps above, although everything should be functioning, the script is still optimized for Ravall.com. We now need to modify the code to better suit your website.
Configuration:
- The first thing we need to configure is, the maximum size of custom (image) ads allowed. To do so, open the file, adminpanel.php and edit the variables, $maximagewidth & $maximageheight. The default values for these two variables are 152X172. Users will not be able to link to image files that are larger than the maximum restriction set by these two variables.
- All the actual outputting is done by multiauthorcommerce.php. If you dislike any message displayed by the script, simply navigate to this file and make the change.
The script functions off of the presence of two files. The file: adminpanel.php is responsible for taking in inputs by the user and displaying all the information present in the MU Ad Management option of the admin panel. The multiauthorcommerce.php file is responsible for grabbing data from the MySql database and outputting the data to the location where the mu_sidebar(get_author_id()) function is called.
We hope you enjoy using this plugin! If you have any questions, comments or feature request, feel free to leave a comment. We will get back to you as soon as possible!
Comments:
When I check my Email to get the link to add custom code. It says Page Not Found.. and does not make the custom text field free to write in.
Ryan McNallen recently posted..TEST wrote a new blog post- test
hmm, the verification is done through the verify.php file. Can you send me the link it sends you in the email and the location of your verify.php file?
Edit:
.
I found the source of the problem. Originally, the plugin folder was named “/multiauthors/” but WordPress.org creates it’s own archive called “/wordpress-multiple-user-ad-management.” As a result, the links generated by the plugin where still searching for files within the “multiauthors” folders, resulting in a 404 error. I have updated the plugin to point to the folder generated by wordpress and everything should be functioning now
Correct, I got that last night lol was just coming back to let you know but you got it as well
Is there a way to make multiple different ads on a single page or just the one?
Ryan McNallen recently posted..If you register your site for free at
I am currently working on being able to call the function multiple times to display many instances of the ads
Also trying to make a stat counter to track the number of clicks. Probably will be included in the next release!
Looking at any WooTheme you can not help however discover how amazingly designed these types of styles are. Not are WooThemes visually stimulating, but they are designed to provide excellent user interaction and continue in order to modern website design developments.
mhm. I agree with you on that one
Probably the reason I signed up as an affiliate with them!
Hi,
Do you plan to improve the plugin so it can be used for Google Adsense ? where every author will post his Adsense code [ with certain size ] and no need for expiration date.
And the plugin can divide the code rotation between author and site owner ? say [60% for author code] and [40% for site owner code]
thanks a lot
Hello,
I can definitely implement the 60% author/40% admin feature on the next release. For the adsense code, you can simply paste it into the code section and it will display.
Oh in addition, setting an expiry time of 0 or leaving the expiry blank altogether will disable it.
Thanks for the input!
Manthan
Hello,
(Sorry for my bad english, I’m from France)
Thank you very much for this awesome plugin, it’s a very very very good work !
I just want to know, as althahabi has suggest you, if there was a release soon with a rotation option. Then, administrator could choose different rotations (60/40, 50/50, 40/60, etc…).
With this option, this plugin would be the must for sharing ads on WordPress. I’m going to spread it all over my webmaster/ blogger contacts, thank you again !
Np, your English is fine! As for the update, expect a release within the next week or so. I’ve been sort of caught up with Organic Chemistry work from university. After the course ends, I have all the time in the world to further improve the plugin
Hi Revalm! Thanks for answering me quickly !
Super, I wish you the best for your university work, take all the time you need, I can wait
Thanks a lot for your amiability !
Salvation from Paris !
Great post!
your plugin doesn’t work when WordPress is installed under a subfolder like mydomain.com/wordpress.
it looks for WP files under mydomain.com
WordPress Türkiye recently posted..WordPress 301 çıktı
Thanks for letting me know! Will upload the corrected version soon
Hello and thank you very much for this wonderful plugin.
I had the same problem but it seems to be fixed, I just modified the path in verify.php line 5
require $path/[mywpfoldername]/wp-load.php
As I do not know anything about programmation I do not know if I did well but it seems to work.
Thanks again Revalm
I fixed it for the next release. The problem was that the file was originally using the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] function to include the wp_load.php file in the verify.php and ads.php files. Unfortunately, I overlooked the fact that, not everyone installs WordPress on the server root. As a result, PHP spits out an error that basically says, “What the heck? The file you were looking for is not here!” I have replaced the require function with: require(“../../../wp-load.php”); in the new release which will come out pretty soon
@ revalm : I am very thankful to you for giving out this great plugin for rewarding the other contributors with our readers reading and interest.
Please help me out, I have just installed this plugin a day before and done all settings and now it’s live on my blog digmlm.com but when users are submitting their html for their promotional banner then also only my default banner is keep showing and the contributors are complaining about the bad experience with my new launch of rewarding them for their valuable article submission at mine place.
Note:- I have given a setting of Numerical Ad rotation ratio at 0%
Recent post: http://www.digmlm.com/new-changes-in-adsense-for-content-ad-units where author is given his hostgator banner for publishing at my fixed area of advertisement by the contributors but only my banner is coming there
Robinsh recently posted..New Changes in Adsense for content ad units
Phew! That was quite a challenge finding the bug. To my defence, it was an issue with WordPress and not the script haha. I still can’t believe the level of impact a simple incorrect !is_single() output can have!
Hello Revalm!
Thanks for this new release, containing rotation options !
I just have one request : in the case that the author has not properly setup the ad management system or if he has disabled ads, how to automatically display admin ads ?
Can you send me a hack to make it possible ?
Further more, how the plugin determines who is the admin ? Because when I put “60%” on the admin settings, my two admin accounts display : “This probability of your ads getting displayed on your posts is 40%”.
So the plugin considers my admin accounts like authors accounts. How to choose one of my admin accounts ?
Thousand thanks !
As of right now, the plugin assumes that the admin account is the user that has a id of 1. This in turn is the first account that WordPress automatically made for you when you completed installation. I will add a menu option so that you may choose the default admin user!
As for the admin ads by default, one step ahead of you there haha! Based on the recommendation of another user, I have already modified the code to display the default admin ads when a user chooses the disable option.
The new release will be out later this week. I’ll let you know
Thanks ! So if I have understood fine (because of my poor level in english), I just have to wait for the new release to have these 2 functions, isn’t it ? Thousand thanks for your help and your awesome work !
Hello Revalm,
Thanks for the new release ! I’m just reporting a little problem : the Ad Settings have disappeared from admin navigation bar for all authors and editors (only admin can see the ad settings).
Thanks !
Hey Job, Can you log into the admin account and go to administrative settings. Then there should be an option that states, minimum userlevel, can you choose authors for that and update?
Hmm, that is a weird issue, are you using any userlevel management scripts by any chance that would alter the original roles?
I’ve choosen “authors” from the beginning, and it doesn’t display for authors and editors, only for admin.
I’ve tested it on a new wordpress blog (latest release of wordpress) without any plugins activated, and it makes the same problem…
It’s strange because the precedent release of the plugin runs perfectly, authors show the plugin settings :/
I’ll check this issue out first thing tomorrow morning! Could you possibly link me to the installation where the problem is occurring? Additionally, would it be alright if I contact you via email?
Edit: I just tested the plugin on a new WordPress installation with a test user account and it seemed to function: http://imgur.com/t27MZ.png I will try to crack down the problem you are experiencing as soon as I receive the link
.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hello! For sure, you can contact me on my mail, I’ll send you credentials.
First off great plugin. Is it possible to limit admin setting to the super admin only?
Hey, I’ll look into it! Moving to new house atm. Reply back as soon as Internet Connection revives.
Edit:
The change will most likely be in the: multiauthorcommerce.php file with the line: add_submenu_page(“MU_Ad_management”, “Administrative_Management”, “Admin settings”,’manage_options’, “Administrative_Management”, “mu_admin_settings”);