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Installing and Configuring the Max Banners System If you have had someone else install the system, and configure it for you, and all you want to do is start adding banners, then you can skip right to Setting Up Banners on Your Webpages. To install the Max Banners system, you need to FTP all the files to a folder on your website. Typically, the folder is called ‘maxbanners’ but you can call it whatever you want. Then start the program at the index.php page. (For example, enter www.yourdomain.com/maxbanners/index.php in a web browser) This is the URL you will always use to start the program. (Actually, www.yourdomain.com/maxbanners will usually be sufficient...) Since you have not configured the program yet, the program will enter the Configuration phase. You will see a page titled, "Pre-installation check." First, this will tell you if your webhost has all the required settings to allow Max Banners to operate correctly. If any of these items are highlighted in red, then please take actions to correct them. Especially important are the Directory and File Permissions. If any of these are highlighted in red, then you must correct the permissions before you will allowed to continue with the configuration. If all of the directories listed are noted as Writeable, then you may continue.In the next step, you see your MySQL Database Configuration. Here you enter the MySQL hostname, username, password and database. If you need more information about setting up a MySQL database, you may download a free ebook with all the details. In the next step, you see Confirm Site URL, Path and Admin e-mail. This page is used to configure the details required by Max Banners. For the site URL and path, you see values already selected. Usually, these will be correct so they won't need to be changed. The field labeled "Admin e-mail" is used as a userid for logging in to the system. Next comes the password you select to gain access to Max Banners. It's a good idea to record this password somewhere, but if you forget, the password can be emailed to your admin email address. Next comes the Program Title fiield. This is used to label the pages within Max Banners... perhaps something like "Banners for Your Domain." This is followed by the number of lines per page in the program's Control Panels. Since you can have hundreds of webpages with banners, you probably don't want to see a list of all of them at once. So the display is page-inated, with this number representing how many are displayed at once on a page. Next comes the maximum filesize (in bytes) for banner images. You will get an error message if you try to Upload images larger than this size. This is followed by the default template for displaying banners on webpages. Each banner can have it's own template for being displayed on your webpages. This is the default template, which you will see in the Template field whenever you are defining a new banner. Here's an example: <p><a href="[[BANNERURL]]" target="blank">[[BANNERIMAGE]]</a><br />Text under the banner</p> The tag URL will get replaced by the URL for your banner. And the IMG will get replaced by the banner you select. You can read more about this at Setting Up Banners on Your Webpages
When you have the information entered, the next step is called Confirm Configuration Parameters. This allows you to see what you have selected and gives you one last chance to modify anything before the database tables will be setup and the program configuration will be put in place. Press the Configure Program button and the Configuration will be finalized. If any errors, they will apear in red and you will be able to correct them. When everything is successful, you will see the message Congratulations! Your configuration is successful! And you can then Start the Program. |
