Adbar Management System - AMS
Users Guide - Creating A New Relation Entry
Overview
Using a Relation is how you specify what page or pages you want an adbar or group of adbars to be displayed on. Relations are extremely flexible, allowing for any combination of adbars and groups to be displayed across any part of your web site.
Because AMS is so flexible, think first about what adbars you're going to want in what sections of your web site. If you take the time to plan out a strategy and get everything set the way you want from the start, you can save yourself from doing more work in the future.
Starting The Creation Of A New Relation Entry
After logging into the AMS Administration Control Panel, you'll see a section where you can "Add A New Entry" for either Advertiser, Group, or Relation. To begin the creation of a new Relation entry, select the "Relation" radio box and enter a name for the entry in the text box. Limit the name to just letters of the alphabet and numbers, and don't use any strange characters or spaces. Once you've done that, press the "ADD" button.
Selecting The Advertisers And Groups In The Relation
On the next page that shows up you will see a selection box listing all of your advertiser entries, and a selection box listing all of your group entries. Select all of the adbars and groups of adbars you want to be in the relation.
Windows users can select multiple entries by holding down the SHIFT key for entries right next to each other, or the CONTROL key for entries that aren't next to each other.
Macintosh users can select multiple entries by holding down the SHIFT key for entries right next to each other, or the COMMAND key (the key with the apple on it) for entries that aren't next to each other.
Enter A List Of Page URLs
Entering page URLs allows you to display the selected adbars on specific pages of your web site. For example, if you wanted to have the adbars displayed on the main page of your site, a news page, and a contact information page within an "about" subdirectory, you would enter the relative URLs for those three pages like this:
/index.html
/news.html
/about/contact_information.html
Enter A List Of Rules
There are a few different types of rules that can be entered in this section. The most common use is to set all of the HTML files in an entire directory (and all of its subdirectories) to display the adbars. If you wanted to display the same set of adbars across your entire site, you could just enter a "/" as the only rule. Every page within your site (including within any subdirectories) would display whatever adbars and/or groups you have selected with the relation. (Keep in mind that the HTML pages must have an #exec cgi or #exec cmd SSI tag to call AMS).
If you'd like to select specific directories instead of your entire site, simply enter the relative URLs of those directories. For example:
/press_releases/
/store/specials/
/store/closeouts/
You can also use the command NOT to keep the adbars from being displayed on a specific page or pages within a directory. For example, if you wanted to display the adbars in every page of your store except for the "specials" section, you could enter the following:
/store/
NOT /store/specials/
Or, if your "specials" section was a single HTML page:
/store/
NOT /store/specials.html
The last type of rule is used in conjunction with the shell version of the AMS script. If you call AMS using the #exec cmd SSI tag within a web page, you can specify a rule within that SSI tag:
<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD:USE_THIS_RELATION"-->
Then when you entered AD:USE_THIS_RELATION into the rules text box, any pages containing that SSI tag would display those adbars. One common reason for using a rule like this is to serve multiple adbars per page
Note that if there is a page on your website that uses AMS which isn't included in any of your relations, it will display one of the adbars from the --Default-- group. In fact, a popular strategy is to set the --Default-- group so that it has a number of adbars that you want displayed, then set up a relation that includes a few individual adbars, plus the default group. This will give more exposure to the individual adbars you selected, but will also display the adbars in the default group.
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