MiniVend has a built-in banner rotation system designed to show ads or other messages according to category and an optional weighting.
The [banner ...] MML tag is used to implement it.
The weighting system pre-builds banners in the directory 'Banners', under
the temporary directory. It will build one copy of the banner for every one
weight. If you weight one banner 7, one 2, and one 1, then a total of 10 pre-built banners will be made. The first will be
displayed 70% of the time, the second 20%, and the third 10%, in random
fashion. If you want all equal, place an equal weight of 1.
Each category may have separate weighting. If you place the above in
category tech, then it will behave as above when you place
[banner category=tech] in the page.
A separate category, say art, would have its own rotation and weighting.
The [banner ...] tag is based on a database table, named banners
by default. It expects a total of five (5) fields in the table:
0 (zero), then the entire contents of the
banner field will be displayed when this category is used. If it is non-zero, then
the contents of the banner field will be split into segments (by the separator {or}). For each segment, the banners will rotate in sequence for that user only. Obviously, the first banner in the sequence is more likely to be
displayed than the last.
Summary of values of rotate field:
non-zero, non-blank: Rotating ads
blank: Ad not displayed
0: Ad is entire contents of banner field
{or} (which will not be displayed).
Minivend expects the banner field to contains the banner text. It can contain more than one banner, separated by the string '{or}'. To activate the ad, place any string in the field rotate.
The special key ``default'' is the banner that is displayed if no banners are found. (Doesn't apply to weighted banners.)
Weighted banners are built the first time they are accessed after catalog reconfiguration. They will not be rebuilt until either:
-- the catalog is reconfigured
-- the file tmp/Banners/total_weight or
tmp/Banners/<category>/total_weight is removed
If the option once is passed (i.e. [banner once=1 weighted=1] then the banners will not be
rebuilt until the total_weight file is removed.
The database specification should make the weight field numeric so that the proper query can be made. Here is the example from MiniVend's demo:
Database banner banner.txt TAB
Database banner NUMERIC weight
Examples:
Your banner table would look like:
code category weight rotate banner
t1 tech 1 Click here for a 10% banner
t2 tech 2 Click here for a 20% banner
t3 tech 7 Click here for a 70% banner
a1 art 1 Click here for a 10% banner
a2 art 2 Click here for a 20% banner
a3 art 7 Click here for a 70% banner
Tag would be:
[banner weighted=1 category="tech"]
This will find *all* banners with a weight >= 1 where the category field is equal to tech. The files will be made into the director tmp/Banners/tech.
[banner weighted=1]
This will find *all* banners with a weight >= 1. (Remember, integers
only.) The files will be made into the director tmp/Banners.
code category weight rotate banner
t1 tech 1 Tech banner 1
t2 tech 2 Tech banner 2
t3 tech 7 Tech banner 3
a1 art 1 Art banner 1
a2 art 2 Art banner 2
a3 art 7 Art banner 3
Each of the above with a weight of 7 will actually be displayed 35% of the time.
[banner category="tech"]
This is pretty much equivalent to:
[data table=banner col=banner key=tech
The differences are:
-- not selected if "rotate" field is blank
-- if not selected, the default banner is displayed
Your banner table would look like:
code category weight rotate banner
tech 0 0 Tech banner
You can put MiniVend tags in the category parameter if you wish:
[banner category="[value interest]"]
[banner category="tech"]
The difference between this and above is the database. Your banner table would look like:
code category weight rotate banner
tech 0 1 Tech banner 1{or}Tech banner 2
art 0 1 Art banner 1{or}Art banner 2
This would rotate between banner 1 and 2 for the category tech for each
user. Banner 1 is always displayed first. The art banner would never be displayed unless you used the tag [banner category=art], of course.
You can put MiniVend tags in the category parameter if you wish:
[banner category="[value interest]"]
[banner category="tech:hw"] or [banner category="tech:sw"]
If you have a colon-separated category, Minivend will select the most specific ad available. If you banner table looks like:
code category weight rotate banner
tech 0 1 Tech banner 1{or}Tech banner 2
tech:hw 0 1 Hardware banner 1{or}HW banner 2
tech:sw 0 1 Software banner 1{or}SW banner 2
This works the same as single-level categories, except that the category tech:hw will select that banner. The category tech:sw will select its own; but the category tech:html would just get the ``tech'' banner.
Otherwise, it works just as in other categorized ads -- rotation will work if set non-zero/non-blank, and it will be inactive if the rotate field is blank. Each category rotates on its own.
(*).
Tag syntax:
[banner
weighted=1*
category=category*
once=1*
separator=sep*
delimiter=delim*
table=banner_table*
a_field=banner_field*
w_field=weight_field*
r_field=rotate_field*
]
Defaults are blank except:
table banner selects table used
a_field banner selects field for banner text
delimiter {or} delimiter for rotating ads
r_field rotate rotate field
separator : separator for multi-level categories
w_field weight rotate field