Banner Manager

[rbarbour]

Right.. The ZX Slideshow does add additional banner groups as does the slideshow Anne uses in her templates. Neither requires entering in the HTML code for the slides, they utilize image banners so it does record the clicks for each slide..

Right, but in order to use the six stock banner positions and use dynamic banners one has to enter the via the HTML code section.

This means that it's EASY to add new slides and there's VERY little chance a client could foul up the slideshow (which is why Anne changed the slideshow she uses to use the banners feature). The ZX Slideshow only makes one SMALL modification to the "tpl_index_categories.php" and "tpl_index_default.php" files to include a call to the "zx_slideshow.php" file. The "zx_slideshow.php" file is where the new banner groups are called..

Right but my OP was to find an alternative to ZX, I will take a further look at Anne's.

So yes if you want to use the stock banner positions, you will need custom code.. What code depends on whether you want one slideshow per banner group versus one image per banner group..

Is that a question?

Now if you wanted to use the stock banner groups/positions with the ZX Slideshow code you could adapt some of the the "zx_slideshow.php" file's code to suit your needs. For example in the "tpl_main_page.php" file you could add modified code from the "zx_slideshow.php" file near the banner position you want to use.. You could then remove ALL of the current stock banner code in the "tpl_main_page.php" file. (this is not ALL of the "zx_slideshow.php" file, just a small example of how the code might be adapted)

<div class="slider-wrapper theme-<?php echo ZX_SLIDESHOW_THEME; ?>">
        <div id="slider" class="nivoSlider">
            <?php
  if (SHOW_BANNERS_GROUP_SET1 != '' && $banner = zen_banner_exists('dynamic', SHOW_BANNERS_GROUP_SET1)) {
    if ($banner->RecordCount() > 0) {
        echo zen_display_zx_slide('static', $banner); 
    }
  }
?>
            
            <?php
  if (SHOW_BANNERS_GROUP_SET2 != '' && $banner = zen_banner_exists('dynamic', SHOW_BANNERS_GROUP_SET2)) {
    if ($banner->RecordCount() > 0) {
        echo zen_display_zx_slide('static', $banner); 
    }
  }
?>

This all assumes that you want the slideshow to display in ONE location on the page using only the stock banner groups..

If you were instead wanting to use only ONE banner group per SLIDESHOW (versus one image per banner group), then this of course will not work..

ZX has already been ruled out, not even interested in trying to use it in place of the original six, it severely slows page loads using it just as a main page slider.