Ad Placement on Index page of CA Vintage style is one of the most easiest modification compared to the placements on viewforum and viewtopic pages. This placement needs putting your ad code just before and after the specific line of code. Well we will be taking two zones over here also, zone 1 and zone 2. Look at the screenshot for the exact positions of the Ads zones.

Ad Placement Before/ After Category on Index Page

Both the zones could be explained in this explanation itself, since both the ads are to be placed before and after the line.

Step1: Open the index_body.html file.

Step 2: Look for the following line in the code.

<!– INCLUDE forumlist_body.html –>

Step3: Just above and below this line paste the following code, replacing your ad goes here with your ad code.

{$CA_BLOCK2_START}Advertisements{$CA_BLOCK2_START2}
<center>
your ad goes here
</center>
{$CA_BLOCK2_END2}
{$CA_BLOCK2_END}

Check the attached screenshot for the placement of code for specific zones, all instructions are covered in the images.

Step 4: Save the changes made to the file.

We hope this is the simple modification for ad placement on the index page of the forum. If you have some problem with the placement contact us here on the official forum for CA Vintage.

This is a continuation post over the ads placement in CA Vintage style. In the last we have covered the Ads Placement in topics for CA Vintage style and this post focuses on the ad placement in the forum page. The ad is placement as a sky scrapper on the left hand side of the forum page, and on the top and bottom of a forum, check the attached screen shot for the exact location. We have specified two zones for better understanding, zone1 and zone2.

Ads in left side of the Forum

In zone 1 the ad appears in the left side of the viewforum page as an sky scrapper.

Step1: Open the viewforum_body.html file.

Step 2: Look for the following line in the code.

<!– INCLUDE overall_header.html –>

This line is the first line on the viewforum_body.html code page.

Step3: Just after this line paste the following code, replacing your ad goes here with your ad code.

<table width=”100%” cellspacing=”1″>
<tr>
<td width=”160″ align=”left” valign=”top”>
{$CA_BLOCK2_START}Adverts{$CA_BLOCK2_START2}
<center>
your ad goes here
</center>
{$CA_BLOCK2_END2}
{$CA_BLOCK2_END}
</td>
<td align=”left” valign=”top”>

Step4: Now look for the following line in the code.

<hr />

Step5: Add the following lines just above these lines.

</td>
</tr>
</table>

Step 6: Save the changes made to the file.

Ad just after forum List

In zone 2 the ad appears in the bottom of the viewforum page, just after the forum list. Refer Zone 2 for the position in the screen shot.

Step1: Open the viewforum_body.html file.

Step 2: Look for the following line in the code.

<!– INCLUDE jumpbox.html –>

Step3: Just above this line paste the following code, replacing your ad goes here with your ad code.

{$CA_BLOCK2_START}Advertisements{$CA_BLOCK2_START2}
<center>
your ad goes here
</center>
{$CA_BLOCK2_END2}
{$CA_BLOCK2_END}

Step 4: Save the changes made to the file.

We hope this modification is simple and attractive with respect to the ad placement on forum page. If you have some problem with the placement contact us here on the official forum for CA Vintage.

We have been asked by some of our users to provide ad placements in CA Vintage style ever since we implemented the style, few days back. Well with the styles provides by stsoftware.biz customization is something that could be achieved in an easy go. This post only focuses on the placement in viewtopic page, where the actual content lies in a forum. We have divided the ad placement in two zones on the viewtopic page. Check the screen shot for the zones and placement.

Ads in the first post

In zone 1 the ad appears just before the content in the viewtopic page of the forum. Its a very lucrative position that increases the click through rate for any forum. This position gives you great results if an rectangular ad block is placed there. Well lets focus on the ad placement first, later we will cover the optimization.

Note: The ad appears only in the first post not to the replies made to it.

Step1: Open the viewtopic_body.html file.

Step 2: Look for in the following line in the code.

{postrow.MESSAGE}</div>

Step3: Just before this line paste the following code, replacing your ad goes here with your ad code.

<!– IF postrow.S_FIRST_ROW –>
your ad goes here
<br/>
<!—ENDIF –>

Step 4: Save the changes made to the file.

Ads after first post

In the Zone 2 the ad appears just after the first post i.e. in-between the content body and the first reply; check the screen shot for exact position. This is also one of the best position that a forum owner love to have. Lets look at the steps to be followed:

Step1: Open the viewtopic_body.html file.

Step2: Look for the following lines in the code

</div>
<!– END postrow –>

Step3: Just before these lines add the following code, replacing your ad goes here with your ad code.

<!– IF postrow.S_ROW_COUNT == 0 –>
{$CA_BLOCK_START}
<center>
your ad goes here
</center>
{$CA_BLOCK_END}
<!—ENDIF –>

Step 4: Save the changes made to the file.

Well the ad placement is completed over the viewtopic_body.html page for the CA Vintage style. We will be covering the ad placement in the viewforum_body.html and index_body.html page. These customizations are really going to be awesome and we are sure you will love them.

If you faces any problem leave a comment, and if you want to discuss over this style entire its official forum for it.

Its really a desire for new web entrepreneur to experiment with new things. Here when you have implemented a new forum, you always want to install new styles. Being new with all these things its a big question, how to install and where to look?

Where to look for new styles?

This is the first question with new users, where to look for fresh styles. Their are lot of sites that provides free styles for phpbb3, but the best place is phpbb’s officially validated styles. All the themes posted their are mostly contributed by the phpbb developers and the themes are regularly updated as soon as a new version of phpbb is released.

I personally use and recommends  Stsotware.biz styles designed by Vjacheslav Trushkin, they provide great styles and support.

How to install new styles?

New style could be stepped in two easy steps, upload style to server and install from the admin panel.

Upload style files on server:

There are various ways of uploading file to the server. It could be done through FTP client (FileZilla) and even through the web control panel (Cpanel). This post focuses on file upload through Cpanel.

1. Login into your Cpanel
2. Open file manager, and go the style folder on the panel /public_html/phpbbwp/forum/styles
3. Now upload the zip file (here ca_vantage.zip) that contains the style file that you want to install.
   
4. After uploading, reload the current page.
   
5. Select the zip file and click on extract.
   
6. The work on server is complete, now move to the admin control panel of forum.

Install Style from ACP forum:

1. Login into ACP (Administrator Control Panel)
2. Select the Style Tab from the top, and choose the style you want to install.
   
3. Now make the choice for default theme and activation on next screen.
   
4. Screen shot and link of the new theme (new users should register and login to observe the theme and features)
   
   Those who like this style can download it from here.

This is how we can do the file upload on server through the Cpanel. Hopefully this will help you with the installation. If you have any problem with it, just leave a comment for support.

The footer of PhpBB could be optimized greatly specially in the case of being hosted on an Blue Host hosting which have simple scripts to manage the installation for you. But this post gives you the potential of customizing your footer for popup and popunder ads also.

Manage footer Affiliate

In the default installation of the phpbb forum through blue hosts simple scripts software, a footer credit not is being attached on every page. Well this link should be attached their to give them credit for the installation. But better way is to get it replaced by an affiliate link of bluehost. And i recommend to highlight it in bold to make it attractive to the users.

Lets proceed to the modification and the steps to be carried out to do so.

1. Login into the admin panel of the forum.
2. Select the style tab>> templates>> click edit on selected style (here i have choosen prosilver)
3. Select overall_footer.html from the dropdown file selection. In the editing frame look for the div highlighted in the image.
   
4. In that particular class you can look for the codes that you want to edit and replace them with the new one and even add new things.

   I have replaced <a href=”http://www.bluehost.com” title=”web hosting”>web hosting</a> with

<b><a href=”http://www.bluehost.com/track/colorsofnet” title=”web hosting”>web hosting</a></b>

This is the image of old footer

This is the image of new footer

Adding Pop Up and Pop Under ads

The best place to add pop up and pop under ads in an phpbb forum is its footer, since it loads in the last when the entire page is loaded. The code can be added before the following lines.

</body>
</html>

And if you have any problem with the parsing of your ad code, you could comment for help over here. We will help you get it parsed on your phpbb forum.

We have installed a new PhpBB forum for the blog, and we have covered the Setup of PhpBB forum from BlueHost account in our last post. Agenda of this post is to cover the things that a new user needs to perform over a newly installed forum.

Change the Username, Email and Password

When you first login into your forum, you should change the default username (admin) and password.

In the administration panel from the general tab>> Quick access >> Manage users

In the select user page, enter admin as the member to be searched.

Now you are on the overview page of the admin user, all the changes highlighted in red squares (username, email and Password) need to be made.

Remember: When these changes are submitted you will automatically be logged out, now login again with the new username and password.

Board Configuration

After the Authentication changes, we are now moving to the Board configuration. From the general tab>> Board configuration>> select Board settings

Here you can determine the basic operation of your board, give it a fitting name and description, and among other settings adjust the default values for time zone and language.

These are some of the basic settings that need to be implemented at the earliest on a newly installed forum. And note that most of the settings are covered in the general tab itself.

If you want a Twitter “Follow” badge on your forum check our post on Floating Twitter “Follow” Badge on PhpBB Forum.

Their are lot of blogs that have a floating Twitter Follow badge on the side of their pages. I was asked by one of my client to implement it’s PhpBB forum. For those who are familiar with PhpBB must be aware of the mod’s that are available for it, and complexity in their installation, as you are dealing directly with the codes modification. Moreover, i was unable to find a Mod for Twitter Badge.

Then i decided to do it the wordpress way, i explored the available options for twitter badge over various wordpress sites and fortunately i came up with a solution to do it for PhpBB. I will be covering this step by step, just follow these steps to implement a twitter badge on your site.

Create a Twitter Badge

First thing is to have a twitter badge, and this badge could be created through Go2web20. Just fill up the form and get the code by clicking on the update code button. You should have a twitter account to fill up over here, if you don’t have one get it from Twitter.

Implement the code on Forum

Now You have the code for the Badge, next work comes to implement it on the forum. In PhpBB3, you can edit the file in admin panel itself. If you are using PhpBB2 you could edit it from the control panel or on your desktop and than transfer it on server through ftp.

1. Edit, overall_footer.html file in PhpBB3 or overall_footer.tpl in PhpBB2
2. At the bottom of the file you will find
   

   </body>

   </html>

3. Place code before these line.
4. And update the file.

   Note: The badge will not appear on IE6.

We hope you like this customization from our end, we will be coming up with such more in the future.