Banners still confusing me!

Hi

Although I have some experience with the basics of Zencart; I have never really experimented with the banners.
I have a live site that I have been experimenting on (as well as my XAMPP server) and I am starting to work my way through the logic of the banner constructs along with the FAQ.
I am having one or two issues that are not covered in the banner FAQ.

I want two banners to link to affiliates and these need to be fixed. Currently I have two SideBanners set up, one with text for Affiliate A(no markup yet) and one with an image that links to Affiliate B.

I am using the Layout Settings in Config with side banner_box and Side banner_box2 set to SideBox-Banners group. Then in Banner Manager under Tools I have made only two SideBox-banners active with the respective links. I have no sort order in here; from the FAQ, the sort order only affects the banner-box-all group.

Then in Layout Boxes Controller I have the sort order set for the correct bannerbox types.

All ok up to now!

But, now:

1. the banner boxes swap their links randomly, ie box A will sometimes contain the same as box B, or they will swap order. ie AA, AB, BA, BB

2. the image only shows if I upload from my local machine, my store refuses to use the image/banner folder on the webserver!

3. The image I currently have running is a 106x106 JPG, yet it seems to expand to some arbitrary size and pushes my content to the right, overspilling the container box and ignoring my image size.

The only way that I can see of sorting out this behaviour is to
i) alter the layout to allow only one box
ii) code (X)HTML into one Side Box that defines the images size and external links eg.

 
<p><a href="{url}"><img src="/images/banners/AfilliateA.jpg width="desired_width" height="desired_height" alt="alt text" /></a></p>
<p><a href="{url}"><img src="/images/banners/AfilliateB.jpg width="desired_width" height="desired_height" alt="alt text" /></a></p>

Maybe add some classes and style them externally too, but you get the idea.
I'm sure that this is a workable solution, but am I re-inventing the wheel here?

I think that the web hosting that I use may be the cause of problem (2), that of addressing the wrong folder for banners because the server is setup in such a way that prevents true root access. I cannot alter http .conf files or .htaccess files. this isn't really a problem for this site because it is a Showroom only.
Basically, my host runs a shared server that allows FTP PHP CGI POP and MySQL but in parallel directories below the true server root. This is not the major issue here though.

I just wondered if I have gone about banners in completely the wrong way or whether the XHTML code would be the proper way forward in this instance?

Thanks for your input

Dave

Ok, to answer your points:

1 - they will do, as they are both using the same banner positions, and each is runnign an SQL statement on the database. It's like they are both throughing the same dice, so the same number does occasionally come up. Solution: In config settings, set one to SideBox-BannersA and the other to SideBox-BannersB. Now in the banner settings, where it says which group, assign a banner to a specific group - SideBox-BannersA or SideBox-BannersB. You'll have to enter these, as they won't appear in the dropdowns.

2 - Make sure you have the correct permissions within the images and banners folders. Try FTPing the banner images up first and see if they then display. It may jsut be that the script can't uplaod your images.

3 - can you post a link so we can see how the images are affected?

Absolute

Hi Absolute,

Thanks for the response. I understand what you are saying about the banners in that they choose from within a group and display a random link from within that group. I did not know that this was their designed behaviour, but what you say makes sense.

In the end I went with coding the XHTML into the banner box that I wanted. I didn't want 'Sponsor' just 'Have you seen..?'

It works quite neatly and is child's play too.

I have just about finished the site now (I had a really good day's work today:cool:)

http://www.impact-leisure.com

Regards

Dave

PS, looks like IE7 still has the peekaboo bug! darn!

You might want to add a .greetings rule to your css to avoid the welcome message overlaying the right hand image at larger text sizes.

John

PS You might like to have a look at what happens when viewed at less that full screen on 1024 resolution.

lockettpots:

You might want to add a .greetings rule to your css to avoid the welcome message overlaying the right hand image at larger text sizes.

John

PS You might like to have a look at what happens when viewed at less that full screen on 1024 resolution.

Well spotted, I will add a new class in the stylesheet for that!:blush:

another job for the morning that one.

Regards

Dave