Easy Banners Magento extension user manual

CONTENTS

1. Description

2. Installation

3. General configurable options

4. Admin interfaces

5. Use Cases

6. Support

Description

Easy Banners extension is efficient solution to manage banners and custom blocks at your magento store. The module is based on Magento core functionality. It supports unlimited number of placeholders and banners, therefore it will help you :

  • display information about scheduled events and holidays related on content
  • display or show banner url
  • display your payments and security icons
  • target specific customers groups
  • place banners inside of cms pages or directly in templates files
  • display several banners or content blocks at same placeholders
  • monitors the number of displays and hits of a banner

Basic terms

Banner - is individual block that contains images, html text, javascript code or flash objects. Each banner can be linked to one or more placeholders.

Placeholder - is custom container for banners, that can be linked to any main reference magento block. It's possible to list them, add or delete placeholders at "Manage Placeholders" admin interface through standard Magento grid.

Installation

Thank you for downloading our magento extension. Please follow these instructions to proceed with the installation of your theme:

Turn store compilation off:

Navigate to Admin -> Tools -> Compilation and deactivate compilation mode for your store.

Copy all files into your magento directory:

Simply copy all files from "extension source x.x.x" directory into your magento store directory.

In case you have different then "default" default folder - rename folders app/design/frontend/default/default and skin/frontend/default/default.

Turn your magento cache off:

Navigate to Admin -> System -> Manage Cache and deactivate cache for your store.

Refresh your admin user access rights:

Simply log out from your store admin and then login back again.

#1 Installation:
  1. Log out from your store admin and then login again to refresh Magento ACL.
  2. Navigate to System > Configuration > Templates-Master > Easy Banners and set directory to store you banners.
  3. That's all. Navigate to your home page and check how your store looks.

General configurable options

To set the following configuration of the extension, go to Magento Admin>System>Configuration>Templates-Master>Easy Banner

Folder Name - please enter the name of the folder, where your banner images will be stored

Admin interfaces

Easy Banners extension provides user friendly interfaces to manage banners and placeholders.

In order to edit banner or create new one, go Magento Admin>Templates-Master>Easy Banner>Manage Banners.

After clicking on any banner from the submitted list, you will be able to edit the settings of Banner information.

Banner Content

  • Title - banner Title
  • Url - sets banner URL (the page which will be opened by clicking on the banner)
  • Mode - please select banner content mode. Possible values are Image or HTML.
  • Image - please upload the image
  • Content - please enter html, javascript or flash code, that get html content mode

Banner Conditions

Using the following settings, you can place your banner on specific page or show it in specific custom group.

  • Category - places your banner to specific category
  • Clicks Count - allows to display banner for specific clicks count condition
  • Customer Group - shows your banner for specific customer group
  • Date - reserves your banner active during specified date range
  • Display Count - allows to display banner for specific displays count condition
  • Page - places your banner on specific page
  • Product - places your banner on specific product
  • Time - reserves your banner active during specified time range

Banner Statistics

This interface provides overview of banners' hits and clicks.

Using the following settings, you can track the total number of views and impressions of banner.

  • Display Count - displays the number of banner impressions
  • Clicks Count - displays the number of clicks on the banner

Note: Easy Banners extension provides views and clicks statistics for every image banner. Html banners are provided with views statistics only.

After pressing Add banner button you will be able to create a new banner using the following settings:

  • Name - the name of the banner
  • Hide url - if you select Yes, the Url will be hidden
  • Target - please select target window to open URL destination. Possible values are Popup, Blank or Self.
  • Sort order - please set the sort order
  • Store view - please select target store view for current banner
  • Placeholder - please select target placeholder for current banner
  • Status - enables or disables current banner

Placeholder
To edit placeholder or create new one, go Magento Admin>Templates-Master>Easy Banner>Manage Placeholders.

The placeholders specified above in screenshot, were configured to show banners on most popular places of Magento store.

After clicking any placeholder from the submitted list, you will be able to edit the settings of Placeholder General information.

  • Placeholder Name - please enter the name of placeholder
  • Parent Block - the name of the block where the placeholder will be rendered. Please specify the values like left, right, content, nav, page, before_body_end.
  • Position - the placement of placeholder in the required location. Please set your placeholder position according to other blocks in the same container. Specify the values like before="-", after="-", before="tags_popular".
  • Banners limit per rotate - please set the number of banners, that will be displayed each time
  • Status - allows you to enable or disable the current placeholder

Additionally you can place your placeholder manually to specified position through Magento xml files, widgets or inline php code.

Xml code:

 <reference name="content">
 <block type="easybanner/banner" name="unique_banner_name">
 <action method="setBannerName"><name>test</name></action>
 </block>
 <block type="easybanner/placeholder" name="unique_placeholder_name">
 <action method="setPlaceholderName"><name>right-top</name></action>
 </block>
 </reference>

Widget:

{{block type="easybanner/banner" banner_name="name"}}
{{block type="easybanner/placeholder" placeholder_name="name"}}

Php code:

 <?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('easybanner/banner')->setBannerName('name')->toHtml(); ?>
 <?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('easybanner/placeholder')->setPlaceholderName('name')->toHtml(); ?>

Use cases

To get started placing banner in the location that you need, go Magento Admin>Templates-Master>Easy Banner>Manage Banners.

Placing banner on Checkout page

Click on the banner that should be changed. At Banner information on the left side of the page select Conditions. Then follow steps below:

  1. Click on the green plus button to add new condition.
  2. Select and click the “page” option in the appeared conditions dropdown.
  3. Then click on three dots near the “is one of” line.
  4. Now you see the input field with icons on the right. Please click on the blue “Open Chooser” icon.
  5. Then select the page where you wish to display the banner. To make banner displayed on the checkout page, please select the “checkout_onepage_index” value.

6. Press Save Banner button.

Placing banner on Home page

You can use sample with the checkout page except item # 5 in order to repeat the steps mentioned above. Please select the “cms_index_index” value.

Placing banner on Product page

Note: the process of placing banner on the product page will be shown by the sample of creating banner Free Shipping to logged in users (before some date) for all items on the product page after price information.

After buying the Easy Banners extension, you will get a list of created placeholders. They are shown in left, right,central columns and in the page headers and footers.

In order to place the banner on product page, you have to create a new placeholder. It must be linked to the one of root Magento blocks.

In order to find the block and start working, please open the product view template /app/design/frontend/base/default/template/catalog/product/view.phtml and select any suitable block to you (it will be parent block to your placeholder). There you will see the line where block ‘extrahint’ (line 63 in original Magento template) is outputted. Please specify the name of this block. You can get the name from catalog.xml file on the line 228 of original Magento catalog.xml file: name="product.info.extrahint".

Then go Magento Admin>Templates-Master>Easy Banner>Manage Banners and follow the settings shown below to create a placeholder:

  • In the Placeholder Name field enter the product-extrahint
  • In the Parent Block field specify product.info.extrahint
  • Please leave blank thePosition field
  • In the Banners limit per rotate field set 100 (you can output all banners that linked with placeholder at once)
  • in the Status field select Enabled.

How to create banner with Free Shipping information

In General information fieldset do as follows:

  • In the Name field enter Free Shipping
  • In the Hide url field select No
  • In the Target field select popup
  • In the Sort Order field set 0
  • In the Store view field select All Store views
  • In the Placeholder field enter product-extrahint
  • In the Status field select Enabled

In the Content fieldset:

  • In the Title field enter Free Shipping
  • Please leave blank the Url field
  • In the Mode field select Html
  • Please leave blank the Image field
  • at Content enter <h3><span style="color: #993300; background-color: #ffcc99;">Free Shipping is available!</span></h3>

In the Conditions fieldset:

  • All of these conditions are true:

Customer Group is not one of 0 (Not Guest)

Date is equal or less than (please set date)

Press Save Banner button.

How to track banner on any link

This can be useful, if you want to track clicks on links with tel: or other non-standard scheme.

Banner html content:

<a id="link-id" href="tel:555">Call us</a>

Add the following js code to the bottom of html content:

<script>
$('link-id').observe('click', function(e) {
new Ajax.Request('{{tm_banner_url}}');
});
</script>

Support

Template Master team is always ready to assist you with any issue related to our products.

We do offer:

  1. Free commercial products installation services
  2. Free updates within offered support period
  3. 3 months of free guaranteed support

Our duties:

  1. Responsibility for resolving products bugs.
  2. Help with technical queries.
  3. Support of popular web browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer 7+).
  4. Technical support in installation and usage of our products.

Troubleshooting:

You can follow the product questions and read frequently asked questions from users.

If you have any problems with extension installation please contact us at helpdesk.

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