Advertising Plugin OIOpublisher
There have been a few topics around the forums last couple of weeks around advertising plugins/solutions and a few of us have been using/mentioning
OIOpublisher.
From these topics some members of the forums have sent me pm message asking how to install the plugin so I thought I would provide a quick guide to get you started.
OIOpublisher is a paid plugin and at time of posting this topic is $47 which I feel is not much for the features it brings some of which are: fully automated sales, automated advert expirations, sell text ads and banner ads and click/impression tracking.
Full details of the plugin can be found at the
authors website along with
support.
The following information is only a guide and is what I used to get the plugin working on my own site, if you require support for the plugin please contact the author website as I am only a happy user of the plugin and sharing my experience…
***Remember to backup your files before any install or configuration and ideally apply to a test site to make sure your happy with the outcome and functions.***
Purchase the plugin
You can purchase the plugin
here
Install Requirements
You must have a php compatible web host available to install OIO on, meaning you have a website that you can upload your own scripts or applications to. If you are using a hosted blogging platform (for example wordpress.com), you must have your own hosting account as well, in order to use OIO with them.
The web host you install OIO on must be compatible with php 4.3 or above, and MySQL 4.1 or above. Any good web host will now offer at least php 5 and MySQL 5. Chances are of you are installing as a Wordpress plugin, your server will already meet both these conditions.
You will also need access to the web host server via FTP.
Installation
1. Download the latest version and unzip on to your hardrive.
2. As we are using the Wordpress plugin module we need to upload the files to the “plugin” directory (generally “
wp-content/plugins”) so from directory you downloaded the files to on your hard drive locate the directory “oiopub-direct” upload this directory and the files within to the “plugins” directory.
3. Log into Wordpress admin, plugins and activate the plugin.
Before we configure the plugin we need to skin the plugin to match our theme so that we get a nice integration with our site and the plugin does not look like its been dumped on the page...
Wordpress Theme Integration
1. Login to your Wordpress admin area and navigate to OIOpublisher -> Settings -> Themes.
2. Select “wordpress” from the theme selection drop down list.
On some themes OIOpublisher will integrate fine but for myself who is using a custom theme I found a few things where out of sync for example sidebar missing, text alignment, colour etc.. so to rectify this problem you can try and skin the plugin to match your custom theme.
1. Login to your Wordpress admin area and navigate to OIOpublisher -> Settings -> Themes.
2. Click on the "main.tpl" link in the Theme Editing section of the page and delete all the content from the textbox on the right hand side.
3. In a separate browser tab/ window, navigate to the Wordpress theme editor found on the admin menu “Appearance/ Editor”.
4. Select either the "page" or "index" template from the list on the right and copy and paste the contents of that template (which will appear in a textbox on the left hand side) into the "main.tpl" textbox you opened in step #2 and save your changes.
5. Now copy and paste all the code below into "main.tpl" textbox from step #2. The place to paste is just above the line of code which contains “have_posts()”.
Code:
<link type="text/css" href="<?php echo $oiopub_set->plugin_url; ?>/libs/bubble/bubble.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $oiopub_set->plugin_url; ?>/libs/bubble/bubble.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $oiopub_set->plugin_url; ?>/libs/misc/oiopub.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">window.onload = function(){ enableTooltip('oiopub-container'); }</script>
<div id="oiopub-container" style="padding:20px 0;">
<?php
//OIO content include
$oio_inc = empty($templates['path']) ? $oiopub_set->folder_dir . "/templates/core" : $templates['path'];
include_once($oio_inc . "/" . $templates['page'] . ".tpl");
?>
<?php
//javascript insert
echo $templates['javascript'];
$oiopub_hook->fire('content_end');
?>
</div>
If you are unsure where to paste the code mentioned in step #5, the following code is an example template from the default Wordpress theme, and highlights where the OIO content code should be placed.
Code:
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="content" class="narrowcolumn" role="main">
<!-- HERE IS WHERE THE OIO CONTENT CODE IS ADDED (start) //--> <link type="text/css" href="<?php echo $oiopub_set->plugin_url; ?>/libs/bubble/bubble.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $oiopub_set->plugin_url; ?>/libs/bubble/bubble.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo $oiopub_set->plugin_url; ?>/libs/misc/oiopub.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">window.onload = function(){ enableTooltip('oiopub-container'); }</script>
<div id="oiopub-container" style="padding:20px 0;">
<?php
//OIO content include
$oio_inc = empty($templates['path']) ? $oiopub_set->folder_dir . "/templates/core" : $templates['path'];
include_once($oio_inc . "/" . $templates['page'] . ".tpl");
?>
<?php
//javascript insert
echo $templates['javascript'];
$oiopub_hook->fire('content_end');
?>
</div>
<!-- HERE IS WHERE THE OIO CONTENT CODE IS ADDED (end) //-->
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
<div class="entry">
<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page »</p>'); ?>
<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
</div>
</div>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
<?php edit_post_link('Edit this entry.', '<p>', '</p>'); ?>
</div>
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>
Now test the plugin and if your custom theme has been designed well the plugin should integrate very nicely, you may want to change some text formats, colours etc.. to meet your requirements and this can be done via the theme css files. (If you are unsure how to do this I would contact your theme developer for assistance)
Advert Placement
In this topic i am not going to cover how advert placement/zones are configured as the authors documents cover this very well, however dont be alarmed it is very easy to configure via the form the plugin provides but if there is enough request perhaps i can put something together
To make full use of this plugin i would recommend
Executable PHP widget this plugin allows you to add additonal widgets as place holders for zones which are used to house adverts and allows you to introduce new adzones, for myself I have created 4 banner adzones two using the standard classipress locations and two using the php widget mentioned above.
Header Zone
For the header zone i used the classipress spot (Classipress/Settings/Advertising) and for this method we use the javascript option, an example of the ad code would be:
Code:
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://www.yourdomainname.com/wp-content/plugins/oiopub-direct/js.php?type=banner&align=center&zone=1'></script>
Single Ad Zone
For the single ad zone (displayed on ad lisiting pages)we can use the default classipress spot (Classipress/Settings/Advertising), an example of the ad code would be:
Code:
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/plugins/oiopub-direct/js.php?type=banner&align=center&zone=2'></script>
Footer Ad Zone
For a footer ad zone we use the power of the Executable PHP widget, once this widget is installed we copy and paste the ad zone code just like using the text widget apart from this allows us to use php code calls, an example of the ad code would be:
Code:
<?php if(function_exists('oiopub_banner_zone')) oiopub_banner_zone(3, 'center'); ?>
As you can see once you have created the adzone on the OIOpublisher plugin, placing your adzones is a matter of copy and paste and using a simple widget, of course there is no reason why you cant hard copy the code for non sidebar locations and using this method really does allow you to place all sorts of advertisements in different spots.
This plugin does far more than what i have covered here and the support documentation provides all the information you will require to start, if there is enough demand then i could cover the plugin in more detail but for now hope this answers the pm messages i received from some members about getting started
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