This is the official Discourse advertising plugin. It allows advertisements to be served by supported advertising platforms for users with a Discourse forum.
### Step 1 - Install the Official Discourse Advertising Plugin
As seen in a [how-to on meta.discourse.org](https://meta.discourse.org/t/advanced-troubleshooting-with-docker/15927#Example:%20Install%20a%20plugin), simply **add the plugin's repository url to your container's app.yml file**:
2. Choose your trust level from the dropdown box. This will only display ads to users with a certain level of trust. For more details about trust levels go to the **Plugin Features** heading.
4. Add parts of your ad code to Discourse's site settings for the locations you wish your ad to appear. Refer to image for your ad platform to where parts of your ad tag should go. For more detail about where the ad will appear
5. Choose Your Ad Size - this is the same size that you've put into your ad provider to create your ad. Go to the **Plugin Features** heading to see a list of supported Ad sizes.
Once you've configured your settings and your advertising platform has ads that are ready to serve, navigate to the page where you've inputted for the location and you should see ads.
| Topic List Top | Ad will appear at the header of Discourse homepage |
| Topic Above Post Stream | Ad will appear in the header of all Discourse forum topics |
| Topic Above Suggested | Ad will appear in the footer above suggested topics of all Discourse forum topics |
| Post Bottom & Nth Post | Ad will appear on the stipulated nth post within a topic. So if you have 5 posts in a topic and you want the ad to display after on the 2nd post, put 2 in ```ad_platform_nth_post_code```. |
To find more about trust levels in Discourse, refer to [Discourse's posts on trust levels](https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-do-user-trust-levels-do/4924)
1. Non-Docker Installation - If you have experience with programming. This will set up this plugin as a git submodule in your Discourse directory.
2. Local Development - If you want develop locally and have experience with programming. This will set up this plugin as a symlinked file in Discourse's plugin directory.
* Separately clone [Discourse Forum](https://github.com/discourse/discourse) in another local folder and [install Discourse](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beginners-guide-to-install-discourse-on-ubuntu-for-development/14727).
* In your terminal, go into Discourse folder navigate into the plugins folder. Example ```cd ~/code/discourse/plugins```
* Create a symlink in this folder by typing the following into your terminal
:
```
ln -s ~/whereever_your_cloned_ad_plugin_path_is .
For example: ln -s ~/discourse-plugin-test .
```
* You can now make changes in your locally held Discourse Adplugin folder and see the effect of your changes when your run ```rails s``` in your locally held Discourse Forum files.
**Discourse.org**: Thanks to our amazing mentor [@eviltrout](https://github.com/eviltrout) and the wonderful [Discourse team!](http://www.discourse.org/)
**Our Coaches**: Very special thank you to our coaches and honorary coach - [@georg](https://github.com/georg), [@betaass](https://github.com/betaass), [@adelsmee](https://github.com/adelsmee), [@davich](https://github.com/davich), [@link664](https://github.com/link664), [@tomjadams](https://github.com/tomjadams), [@compactcode](https://github.com/compactcode), [@joffotron](https://github.com/joffotron), [@jocranford](https://github.com/jocranford), [@saramic](https://github.com/saramic), [@madpilot](https://github.com/madpilot), [@catkins](https://github.com/catkins)
**Rails Girls**: Thanks [@sareg0](https://github.com/sareg0) and the Rails Girls Team for the opportunity to participate in Rails Girls Summer of Code 2015.
<p>To create this plugin we referenced the <ahref="https://github.com/discourse/discourse-google-dfp">original dfp plugin</a> (created by <ahref="https://github.com/nlalonde">@nlalonde</a>) and the <ahref="https://meta.discourse.org/t/google-adsense-plugin/11763/133">adsense plugin</a>.</p>
