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1 ---------
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2 Overview:
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3 ---------
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4 The ad module is a powerful advertising system for Drupal-powered websites. It
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5 supports the random display and tracking of graphical (banner), text and raw
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6 html ads. Ads can easily be displayed in themes, blocks, or embedded in site
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7 content. The module records comprehensive statistics about when and how often
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8 ads are viewed and clicked, including a plug-in module for generating graphical
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9 time-based reports. Ads can be assigned to multiple owners, each of which can
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10 be assigned their own set of permissions. Installation is simple by design. An
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11 API is provided allowing the development of additional functionality and
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12 integration with other Drupal modules.
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13
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14 Features:
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15 * auto-generated ad blocks supporting a configurable number of ads
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16 * automatically or manually embed ads into site content
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17 * collection of comprehensive statistics allowing time-based reporting and
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18 analysis
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19 * tracking of when and where ads are clicked, by which user and which IP
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20 * advertisements can have multiple owners
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21 * granular per-advertisement/per-owner permissions system
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22 * activation/expiration scheduling based on time, clicks or impressions
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23 * an ad_image plug-in for image (aka banner) ads
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24 * an ad_text plug-in for simple text ads
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25 * an ad_html plug-in for raw html ads
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26 * an externally maintained ad_geoip plug-in provides support for
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27 geotargeting ads
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28 * an ad_report plug-in for basic graphical reports
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29 * an ad_notify plug-in for scheduling automatic email notifications
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30 * an ad_remote plug-in for hosting ads on remote (non-Drupal) websites
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31 * an administrative statistics overview page
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32 * support for any number of configurable ad groups, utilizing Drupal's
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33 taxonomy (category) subsystem
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34 * display ads based on node ids (nids) or taxonomy terms (categories)
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35 * file-based caching for improved performance
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36 * memcache-based caching for improved performance
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37 * support for external caching methods
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38 * MySQL and PostgreSQL support
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39
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40
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41 ------
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42 Usage:
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43 ------
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44 Installation and requirements information can be found within the INSTALL.txt
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45 file included with this module.
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46
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47
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48 -------------
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49 Creating ads:
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50 -------------
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51 Once the ad module is properly installed an enabled, you can create
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52 advertisements by visiting 'create content' on your website and choosing
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53 'advertisement' as the content type. If you have enabled multiple ad type
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54 modules, you can select one of them from the resulting menu, such as 'image
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55 advertiesment' or 'text advertisement'.
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56
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57 Text ads:
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58 ---------
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59 Text ads are very simple, requiring that you fill out only three fields of
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60 information. First, you need to specify the Destination URL where you want
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61 people to be redirected when they click on your text ad. Second, you enter
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62 the a header for your ad. The header will be linked to the Destination URL.
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63 Finally, you need to specify the body of your ad.
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64
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65 Image ads:
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66 ----------
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67 Image ads or only slightly more complicated than text ads. They depend on
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68 the drupal core Upload module for managing the actual images. As with text
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69 ads, you first need to specify the Destination URL where you want people to
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70 be redirected when they click on your image ad. Second, you can optoinally
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71 enter some Mouseover text. If you enter text in the mouseover field this
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72 text will be displayed when people hover their mouse pointer over the
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73 advertisement. Finally, you need to scroll down to the File attachements
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74 section of the page and click the Browser button to select your image, then
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75 click Attach to upload the image.
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76
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77 HTML ads:
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78 ---------
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79 HTML ads allow you to easily define your own custom ad type by simply pasting
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80 in a block of HTML code. At this time, however, the ad module is unable to
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81 track when html ads are clicked.
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82
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83 Ad groups:
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84 ----------
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85 Ads can be organized into groups. For example, you may have a group called
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86 "Text Ads" and another group called "Image Ads." You could then assign your
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87 text ads to the "Text Ads" group, and your image ads to your "Image Ads"
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88 groups. (This is not required, it is perfectly valid to include both image
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89 ads and text ads in the same group.) When displaying ads, you typically tell
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90 the ad module to display ads from a certain group and then the ad module
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91 randomly selects an active ad from the specified group. Each ad can be a
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92 member of any number of groups.
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93
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94 Ad status:
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95 ----------
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96 There are several states that an ad can exist in. An ad in the Pending state
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97 is one that has recently been uploaded and is waiting to be approved by a
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98 privileged user. An ad in the Approved state is one that has been approved
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99 by a privileged user but is not actively being displayed, the ad could be
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100 waiting on an autoactivation event. An ad in the Active state is being
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101 actively displayed. An ad in the Offline state is approved but is currently
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102 not being displayed. An ad in the Unpublished state means that the ad node
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103 was unpublished so the ad is not any longer being displayed. An ad in the
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104 Expired state is no longer being displayed. An ad in the Denied state means
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105 it was not approved by the site administrator.
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106
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107 Scheduling:
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108 -----------
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109 If you put an ad into the Approved state and then enter a date and time in the
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110 Automatically Activate Ad field, the ad will be automatically activated
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111 on the date and time specified. This feature requires that cron be functional
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112 on your website. If you enter a date and time in the Automatically Expire Ad
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113 field, the ad will be automatically expired on the date and time specified.
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114 Again, this feature requires that cron be functional on your website.
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115
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116 If you enter a number into the Maximum Impressions field, the ad will be
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117 automatically expired once it has been displayed this number of times.
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118
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119 If you enter a number into the Maximum Clicks field, the ad will be
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120 automatically expired once it has been clicked this number of times.
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121
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122 ---------------
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123 Displaying ads:
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124 ---------------
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125 There are many ways to display ads with the ad module. The simplest way
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126 is to enable one of the automatically generated ad blocks. It is also possible
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127 to use the ad_embed module to automatically embed ads within your site content.
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128 And you can even display ads from within the PHP of your theme or another
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129 module.
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130
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131 ----------
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132 Ad blocks:
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133 ----------
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134 The ad module automatically generates on ad block for every ad group that you
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135 create. For example, if you visit "Administer >> Site building >> Blocks"
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136 you will find a block named "ad group: default". If you enable this block,
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137 it will display a random ad from all active ads in the default group.
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138
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139 You can optionally configure the block to display more than one ad at a time
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140 by clicking the 'configure' link on the block administration page.
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141
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142 -------------
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143 Embedded ads:
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144 -------------
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145 If you enabled the ad_embed module, it is possible to embed ads into your
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146 site content. To configure the ad_embed module go to "Administer >> Content
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147 Management >> Ads >> Settings >> Embedded ads".
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148
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149 If you wish to manually embed ads in your content, check the box next to
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150 "Replace ad bracket tags" or "Replace ad comment tags". This will cause the
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151 ad_embed module to replace embedded [[add]] or <!--ad--> tags respectively.
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152 Instructions on how to specify specific ad groups or even specific ads and
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153 how many ads to display at a time can be found by visiting "Administer >>
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154 Help >> Embed".
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155
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156 If you wish to automatically embed ads in your content, configure this on a
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157 per-content-type basis in the lower configuration section.
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158 embeded ads".
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159
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160 ------------------------
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161 Displaying ads from PHP:
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162 ------------------------
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163 To display an ad from within PHP code, make a call to the ad() function.
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164 You can optionally specify an ad group, the number of ads to display, and
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165 several other options. For example, to display one random ad from all ads
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166 that have not been assigned to any group you don't have to pass in any
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167 parameters:
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168 <?php print ad(); ?>
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169
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170 To display two ads from all ads that have not been assigned to any group
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171 you would execute the following code:
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172 <?php print ad(0, 2); ?>
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173
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174 (The first parameter specifies the ad group to display ads from. By
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175 specifying 0, we are telling the ad module to display ads that are not
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176 assigned to any group. The second parameter specifies the number of ads
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177 to display at one time.)
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178
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179 To randomly display an ad from a specific group of nids, for example with
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180 the node ID 69 or 76, you would pass in the following parameters:
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181 <?php print ad(NULL, 1, array('nids' => '69,76')); ?>
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182
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183 (When specifying specific nids, any specified ad group is ignored, so we
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184 leave the first parameter as NULL. The second parameter causes only one
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185 ad to be displayed at a time. And the third parameter is an array that
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186 tells the ad module to randomly display either ad 69 or ad 76.)
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187
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188 To display and ad randomly selected from multiple groups you can simply
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189 specify multiple groups separated by commas. For example, to display 3
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190 ads from groups 24, 56 and 98 you would pass in the following parameters:
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191 <?php print ad('24,56,98', 2); ?>
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192
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193 You can also specify how to display a given ad. Current display methods are
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194 'javascript' and 'raw'. When using the 'javascript' method, ads will
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195 randomly change even when the Drupal pagecache is enabled. When using the
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196 'raw' method, ads will only change when the Drupal pagecache is flushed.
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197 To force one ad with a tid of 76 to display using JavaScript you would pass
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198 in the following parameters:
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199 <?php print ad(76, 1, array('method' => 'javascript'));
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200
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201 To force two ads with a tid of 101 or 102 to display using the Raw method
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202 you would pass in the following parameters:
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203 <?php print ad('101,102', 76, array('method' => 'raw'));
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204
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205 ------------
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206 Theming ads:
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207 ------------
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208 All ads are wrapped in the following tags:
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209 <div class="advertisement" id="group-#"></div>
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210
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211 All ads are in the same "advertisement" class. Each ad group gets a unique
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212 id. This makes it possible to create generic advertisement formatting as
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213 well as specific advertisement formatting.
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214
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215 CSS Example 1:
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216 --------------
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217 This sample code can be added to your theme's custom style.css. It adds
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218 padding to advertisements, wrapping them in a dashed border and giving
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219 them a background color. It also adds the text "Advertisement:" above
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220 the ad:
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221
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222 .advertisement {
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223 padding: 5px;
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224 border: dashed;
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225 background-color: #ffd;
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226 }
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227
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228 .advertisement:before {
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229 content: "Advertisement:";
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230 }
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231
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232 CSS Example 2:
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233 --------------
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234 Here is more sample code that could be added to your theme's custom
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235 style.css. It will cause multiple image ads to be displayed horizontally
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236 one beside the other (space permitting), rather than vertically one
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237 below the other. The ads are aligned to the left side of the screen,
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238 if you'd prefer them to be aligned to the right side of the screen change
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239 the word "left" to "right" in the snippet:
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240
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241 .image-advertisement {
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242 float: left;
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243 padding: 3px;
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244 }
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245
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246
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247 -------------------
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248 Ad module settings:
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249 -------------------
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250 The ad module and related modules provide a number of configuration options.
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251
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252 ----------------
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253 Global settings:
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254 ----------------
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255 The ad module allows you to specify some global settings at "Administer >>
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256 Content management >> Ads >> Settings >> Global settings".
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257
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258 Even if you do not plan to make any changes, you should visit this page at
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259 least one time as the ad module will perform a series of sanity tests when
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260 you visit this page, alerting you to any installation problems.
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261
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262 This page begins by displaying the path to serve.php. If you see an error
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263 here, then the ad module is not properly installed. Review the directions
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264 in INSTALL.txt to properly install the ad module.
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265
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266 In the General section you can specify what happens when an advertisement is
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267 clicked. For example, you can choose to have the resulting Destination URL
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268 opened in the same browser window, or in a new browser window. You can also
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269 enable the "nofollow" check box causing ads served by the ad module to
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270 include rel="nofollow" in automatically generated links. You can select
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271 to display advertisements using JavaScript, jQuery, IFrames, or Raw HTML.
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272 Finally, you can disable URL validation, and enable advertisement filtering.
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273
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274 Checking 'Filter ads' allows you to apply Drupal's standard input filters
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275 to your advertisements. If you enable this option, be sure to apply a
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276 compatible filter that doesn't strip away the <div> and other tags used by
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277 the various advertisement types.
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278
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279 The next section allows you to configure IFrames, if you are using them to
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280 display advertisements.
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281
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282 For better performance, you can also enable a cache. At this time there is
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283 only a file cache available. When the file cache is enabled, ads are quickly
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284 displayed from a cache file without bootstrapping Drupal. On very busy
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285 websites you may need to increase the number of cache files to prevent
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286 cache file contention.
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287
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288 ---------
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289 Text ads:
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290 ---------
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291 The ad_text module allows you to specify some minimum and maximum lengths for
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292 text ads at "Administer >> Content management >> Ads >> Settings >> Text ads".
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293
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294 ----------
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295 Image ads:
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296 ----------
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297 The ad_image module allows you to specify some image constraints on a
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298 per-group basis at "Administer >> Content management >> Ads >> Settings >>
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299 Image ads".
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300
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301 -------------
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302 Embedded ads:
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303 -------------
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304 Manually and automatically embedded ads can be configured at "Administer >>
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305 Content management >> Ads >> Settings >> Embedded ads".
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306
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307
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308 -----------
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309 Statistics:
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310 -----------
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311 The ad module tracks how often each ad is viewed and clicked. The statistics
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312 are tracked to an hourly granularity.
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313
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314 When an advertisement is first enabled, the statistics for 'This hour', 'Today',
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315 'Last seven days', 'This month', 'This year' and 'All time' will all be the
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316 same. When available, statistics will also include 'Last hour', 'Yesterday',
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317 'Last month', and 'Last year'.
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