Official Discourse Advertising Plugin

This is the official Discourse advertising plugin. It allows advertisements to be served by supported advertising platforms for users with a Discourse forum.

Supported Discourse Version: 1.4

Supported Ad Platforms:

• Google Adsense
• Google Double Click for Publishers

Quick Start in 3 Steps

This quick start shows you how to install this plugin and use it. Recommended if you have:

• A live discourse forum
• You have deployed that forum using Docker. Most people using Digital Ocean will have deployed Discourse using Docker.

For installation for non-docker or local development (those with programming experience), see Other Installation.

Step 1 - Install the Official Discourse Advertising Plugin

As seen in a how-to on meta.discourse.org, simply add the plugin's repository url to your container's app.yml file:

hooks:
  after_code:
    - exec:
        cd: $home/plugins
        cmd:
          - mkdir -p plugins
          - git clone https://github.com/team-melbourne-rgsoc2015/discourse-adplugin.git

Rebuild the container

cd /var/docker
git pull
./launcher rebuild app

Step 2 - Configure Your Settings to Display Your Advertisments

TBC Add GIFS, Images ✘ this is a cross ✓ this is a tick After installation users likely want to:

• Choose platform.
• Input ad codes + do a few other things. - DFP in detail with custom targeting - write guide on this.
• Display ad.

• Go to Admin > Settings > Ad Plugin
• Add DFP link into code boxes, input width and height based on Google Ad Ad units. Here are some sample ad codes that you can put in the input into the settings. But remember: ⋅⋅* Each slot requires a different sample ad code. That means, you cannot put the same ad sample ad codes multiple times in different slots. They won't appear.
  ⋅⋅* Don't click on the ad.
  ⋅⋅* On the last stroke of midnight, the magic will wear off. Make sure you leave the ball before then.

Please test both plugins individually - don't symlink both together, instead test them in isolation.

Input 3 parts - ad code (topmost box), width, height. And be sure to untick the disable box. Then, refresh the page for the inputs to take effect, and go to the ad location.

Usually google sizes to input are (widthheight) 300250 or 728*90 (best) respectively. Input your dfp ad code.

The namings in settings are with reference to the plugin outlets created by Discourse.

dfp_topic_list_top_code: ad will appear at the header of Discourse homepage

dfp_topic_above_post_stream_code: ad will appear at the header of all Discourse forum topics

dfp_topic_above_suggested_code: ad will appear at the footer above suggested topics of all Discourse forum topics

dfp_post_bottom_code: ad will appear on the Nth post (be sure to input N in the bottom-most box called

dfp_nth_post_code and ensure your total number of posts in topic >=N. For example, if you input N = 4, the forum should have at least 4 replies/posts)

Sample DFP Ad Codes:

1. /142953540/PostandCourier/Postandcourier.com/News/Leaderboard_Bottom
2. /6355419/Travel/Europe/France/Paris
3. /1047893/kv_home_bigbox1

This is how it looks like when you put it in site settings. (Images here aren't showing atm - but you can go to this link to see the ad codes and what the ads look like when they're loaded).

This is how the ads should display is all is working fine.... (ads also change so don't worry if your ads look different).

Location: Topic list top

Location: Topic top

Location: Above Suggested Topic

• Finally, if you wish to disable the ad, tick ad disabling box

Step 3 - See Your Ad

TBC

Other Installation

There are two sets of installation instructions:

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.

If you already have a live Discourse forum up, please go to the Quick Start heading above.

1. Non-docker installation

• Run bundle exec rake plugin:install repo=http://github.com/team-melbourne-rgsoc2015/discourse-adplugin in your discourse directory
• In development mode, run bundle exec rake assets:clean
• In production, recompile your assets: bundle exec rake assets:precompile
• Restart Discourse

2. Local Development Installation

• Clone the Discourse Adplugin Repo in a new local folder.
• Separately clone Discourse Forum in another local folder.
• 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.

Advertisement Sizes Supported

This plugin supports the following ad sizes for the following locations:

Advertisement locations: topic list top, topic above post stream and topic above suggested.

All locations except post bottom	Post bottom location	Mobile
728 x 90	728 x 90	320 x 50
336 x 280	960 x 90
300 x 250	468 x 60
960 x 90	234 x 60
468 x 60
234 x 60
125 x 125
180 x 150
200 x 200
250 x 250
--	--	--

Questions/Feedback/Contributing?

Open an Issue on this repository to start a chat. Issues and Pull Requests are greatly appreciated. Bear in mind that when submitting feature requests, if it's not something that most people will use, it probably won't get merged.

Credits

Discourse.org - Thanks to our mentor @eviltrout and the Discourse team - @LIST_OUT_THEIR_GITHUB_HANDLE Rails Girls - Thanks @sareg0 and the Rails Girls Team. Our Coaches - @LIST_OUT_THEIR_GITHUB_HANDLE

License

TBC: GPL v2 or MIT