“Simple Advert” Documentation by “Robert Nduati” v3.0
“Simple Advert”
Thank you for purchasing my script. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please feel free to email via my user page contact form here. Thanks so much!
Table of Contents
- ABOUT
- INSTALLATION
- UPDATE
- GETTING STARTED
- ADMIN DASHBOARD
- ADVERTISERS DASHBOARD
- USER AUTHENTICATION
- STRUCTURE OF THE APPLICATION
- CUSTOMIZING THE LOOK
A) About - top
Simple Advert provides you with a quick and easy way to manage advertisements in your site. It is PHP and Jquery system that seamlessly integrates to your pages with minimal changes and little need for maintainance. It has everything you need to manage advertisements on you site.
Features:
- Add a wide variety of ad banners to you site easily including images, text, AdWords style, Swf and textlinks
- Quick and easy installation
- Admin and advertisers dashboard with their own authentication system
- Automatically generated page to sell your ad space
- Receive payment using Paypal and Moneybookers
B) Installation - top
Please follow these instructions to install this script for the first time
- Download and unzip the package
- Make changes to the file application/settings.php and includes/db.php. Put in the details specific to your setup
- Upload the folder simple_advert to your server
- Using your browser navigate to install.php. This will setup the database tables
- Delete the install.php file
- If your are using Simple Advert for the first time, check the "Getting Started" section of the user guide. The user guide is in the folder named "userguide"
C) Updating - top
Many changes have been made to the script. These include:
- There is a greater variety of types of advertisements you can create and manage
- The advertisers dashboard has received more features and the give a better authentication system
- The admin dashbaord now has it own authentication system
Due to the scale of changes from the previous version, it will not be possible to update. A clean install is required. I apologize for any inconvinience.
D) Getting Started - top
To quickly create and add an ad to your pages using Simple Advert follow these steps:
1. Sign In to the Admin Dashboard:
Using your browser, navigate to the index.php file in the package. You will be directed to the Login page. For the first time you will sign in using the email you put in the application/settings.php file like this:
Email: the email you entered
Password: the email you entered
After you have signed in click on the "Change Password" menu and change the password to something more secure and that you can remember.
2. Create a Ad Slot/Category:
There are generally two types of ads you can create using Simple Advert:
- Banners: These can be image, swf or text and are added to the pages using ajax.
- Textlinks: These are simple lists of textlinks that you might sell to clients that want to booster their PR. They are added using PHP script to ensure they are indexed by search engines.
The first step to adding ads to your site will be to create Banner slots and/or Tetlink Categories.
Create Banner Slot
To create a banner slot click on the "Banner" menu in the admin dashboard and then on the page that you will be directed click on the "Create Advert Slot" subnav menu. You will be directed to a form for creating the slot. The form will ask you for the following information:
- Banner Type: For this you have 2 choices; 'Single Image/Swf/Text' and 'Multiple Text'. If you want a banner like the one for Google AdWords that has more than one text ads at a time then select the 2nd choices. For all other cases select the 1st choice.
- Name: The is simply a name for refering to the ad slot.
- Description: This is a description of the slot that will assist your clients when purchasing.
- Width: All banners have a fixed width and height. Specify the width and height in pixels. For AdWord style banner make sure that the width is atleast 260px for the best display.
- Height: Specify the height of the ad slot in pixels. For AdWord style slots, make sure that the height is atleast 100px.
- Maximum Number of Adverts: This is the limit for the number of ads that can be rotated at a slot at a go. Leave it empty if you do not want to limit.
- Price plan: We will talk about this after explaining the fields for creating a textlink category.
Create Textlink Category
To create a textlink category click on the "Text Links" menu in the admin dashboard and then on the page that you will be directed click on the "Create Textlink Category" subnav menu. You will be directed to a form for creating the category. The form will ask you for the following information:
- Name: The is simply a name for refering to the textlink category.
- Description: This is a description of the category that will assist your clients when purchasing.
- Maximum Number of Adverts: This is the limit for the number of ads that can be displayed at a category at a go.
- Price plan: An explaination for this follows.
Price Plans
Whether you are creating a banner slot or textlink category, you will also need to create one or more price plans for them. The process is the same for both:
- Click on the "Add a Price Plan" link on the page for creating/editing the banner slot or textlink category. A form will appear than will ask you for 3 things.
- Units: This is what the price plan will be based on. It could be days, impressions or clicks
- Price: This is what the price plan will go for. This is the amount the client will pay when purchasing the plan
- Quantity: This is the quantity of units that the client will get for paying the amount. For example, if the units are "Days", the price is "100", and the quantity is 30, then the client will get 30days for $100.
- You can click in the "Add a Price Plan" link as many times as you need to add the price plans.
3. Integrate the Slot/Category your page:
Once you have created the banner slot or the textlink category, you will then be able to integrate them to your page. All that this involves is copy/pasting some markup to the page in which you want to put the ads. We will talk about the banner slots first and then the textlink categories after.
Integrating banner slots
To start, click on the "Banner" menu and the click on the "Edit Advert Slots" subnav menu. You will be directed to a page that has a form for editing the slot and the markup needed to integrate the slot. Scroll down the page past the form and you will see intructions on what to copy:
- CSS: The 1st bit of markup that you will copy is for including the CSS file that has the styling for the slot.
- Jquery: The banners are loaded using ajax and jquery is required. You will only copy this markup if you have not already included jquery on your page.
- Javascript: Next you will copy/paste the javascript that actually does the work. You will need to paste it after the jquery.
- HTML Markup: You will need to paste this markup where you want to place the banner slot on your page. If you want multiple instances of the same banner on one page you cannot just copy once and paste many times. You will need to copy, paste, go back to the place you copied and click on the link titled "Refresh", copy and so forth.
The first 3 bits of markup (CSS, Jquery, and Javascript) are exactly the same for all the banner slots. It is only the 4th bit that is unique to each slot. This means that the first 3 will be copies once per page regardless of the number of banner slots you have on that page.
Integrating textlink categories
To start, click on the "Textlinks" menu and the click on the "Edit Textlink Categories" subnav menu. You will be directed to a page that has a form for editing the category and the markup needed to integrate the category. Scroll down the page past the form and you will see intructions on what to copy:
- Jquery: The texlink click statistics are collected using ajax. You will only copy this markup if you have not already included jquery on your page.
- Javascript: Next you will copy/paste the javascript that actually does the work. You will need to paste it after the jquery.
- PHP Class Include Code: This is some PHP Code that includes the class that will display the textlink.
- PHP Display Code: This is some PHP Code that actually displays the textlinks.
The first 3 bits of markup (Jquery, Javascript and PHP Class Include Code) are exactly the same for all the textlink categories. It is only the 4th bit that is unique to each category. This means that the first 3 will be copies once per page regardless of the number of textlink categories you have on that page.
3. Create Ads and Textlinks:
Once all that is done, the buy page will be accessible to your users anf you are now ready to start creating ads.
The advertisers will be able to create their ads using the buy pages and pay for them through Paypal and Moneybookers. You will also be able to create ads using the admin dashboard.
E) Admin Dashboard - top
The Admin Dashboard of Simple Advert provides you with all the functions that you will need to manage the ads and the spaces conviniently. You can perfomr the following taskd form the admin panel:
- Manage Banners and Banner Slots: Under the "Banner" menu you can create text banners, AdWords Style banners, Upload Images ans Swf banners, edit and delete banners and create, edit, and delete banner slots.
- Manage Textlinks and Textlink categories: All the functions that relate to textlinks can be found under the "Textlinks" menu.
- Manage Users: All the functions that relate to users can be found under the "Users" menu.
- Approve and Reject purchase and changes to ads: Under the "Pending" Menu you will find a list of items that are waiting your approval. These items include purchase of ad space and changes to ads that advertisers want to make. You have the option to approve them or when necessary to reject them.
F) Advertisers Dashboard - top
Advertisers also have a dashboard where they can view statistics for their advertisement, make changes to their advertisement and also easily purchase additional advertisement space.
The user account to access the advertisers dashboard is automatically created once purchase for ad space has been completed and approved. It is also possible for you to manually create user accounts for the advertisers from the admin dashboard.
G) User Authentication - top
Simple Advert comes with its own authentication system. You can create, edit and delete user accounts from the admin dashoard under the "Users" menu.
Initial signing in:
When the application is first installed you will use the email address you set in application/settings.php. You will then need to sign in using these details:
Email: the email you entered
Password: the email you entered
Advertisers accounts:
The accounts for the advertisers are automatically created after the purchase ad space. It is also possible for you to create an account for an advertiser manually from the admin dashboard.
Change password:
Once you have signed in you can change the password by clicking on the "Change Password" menu.
Forgot Password:
Incase you forget your password, there is a password retrival link title "forgot password?" at the login form. Click on this link and you will be presented by a form requesting you to enter your email address. If the email is correct a new password will be sent to that email address.
H) Structure of the Application - top
This application is in the MVC form. Here is a list of some of the important files and folders:
- .HTACCESS - redirects all requests to the index.php file except a few
- index.php - handles most of the request for the application
- install.php - installs the application
- views(folder) - Contains the HTML to all the pages displayed by the script
- admin(folder) - HTML for the admin dashboard
- advertisements(folder) - HTML for the advertisement including placeholders.
- advertisers(folder) - HTML for the advertisers dashboard
- auth(folder) - HTML for the login, change password, and forgot password pages
- buy(folder) - HTML for the buy pages
- email_templates(folder) - Contains all the email templates
- application(folder)
- tinyMvc.php - Load the needed .php files and initialize the controller class
- controller.php - Controls the application
- model.php - Handles interaction with the database
- settings.php - The settings for the application
- router.php - Converts urls to function calls
- view.php - Manages the rendering of the views
- library.php - A few useful functions
- includes(folder) - Contains the Paypal and Moneybookers classes
- includes(folder)
- db.php - A classes to display the textlink categories
- js(folder) - Contains the javascript files
- css(folder)
- admin.css - Css for the admin dashboard
- advertisers.css - Css for the advertisers dashboard
- adverts_css.css - Css for displaying the banners
- auth.css - Css for the login, change passwors, and forgot password pages
- buy.css - Css for the buy pages
- userguide(folder) - User manual
I) Customizing the look - top
The HTML files can be found in the "view" folder and the css files are in the "css" folder. They are given descriptive names to help you find the files that you are looking for
Once again, thank you so much for purchasing this script. As I said at the beginning, I'd be glad to help you if you have any questions relating to this theme. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to assist. If you have a more general question relating to the script on CodeCanyon, you might consider visiting the forums and asking your question in the "Item Discussion" section.
Robert Nduati
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