We're glad to announce the release of some great enhancements in the popular "Advertisements / Community Ads Plugin", which will increase the usability and performance of this plugin:

1) Widgetized Ad Board Page: The "Ad Board" page, which shows many ads collectively in an attractive grid format, is now a widgetized page. Hence, you can place multiple other widgets on this from the Layout Editor.

2) New "Display Advertisements" widget: This enhancement greatly increases the usability of this plugin and makes it easier to place Ad Blocks at various places on your website from the Layout Editor. This new widget can be easily placed on various widgetized pages of your website to display Community Ads. For each widget / ad block placement, various properties can be configured from the Layout Editor like:
        ~ Types of Ads - All / Sponsored / Featured
        ~ Advertisement Packages of which Ads should be shown
        ~ Number of Ads
        ~ Loading of Ads (AJAX / Normal)

3) New "Duration for Statistics & Reports" setting: This setting enables you to choose the maximum duration for which users will be able to see Statistics and Reports for their advertisements on your website.
     ~ This setting is used in the backend to remove old, redundant entries from 2 database tables - ‘engine4_communityad_adstatistics’ and ‘engine4_communityad_adstatisticscache’. Thus, it keeps the database light.
     ~ Currently, the default value of this setting has been set to 3 years but, if you still face some speed problem, then you can set the duration for statistics & reports to 1 year on your site.

4) Optimized Database Table Structures: We have done some changes in the database table structures to increase the performance of this plugin:
        ~ Database Table Indexing: Will improve the speed of data retrieval operations on the database tables.
        ~ Earlier some database fields were redundant and now, with above mentioned feature changes and enhancements, we have removed those extra fields from the database tables.

5) New FAQ: We have also added a new FAQ as below to enable you to place an Ad Block on a Non-widgetized page:
      Q: How can I place an 'Ad Block' on a Non-widgetized page?
       Ans: To do so, please follow the steps mentioned below:
                Step 1: Open the desired file.
                Step 2: Copy and paste the below code at desired position in the file:

                 <?php $cmad_show_type="all";   // Select the any one type of Ad - all, sponsored, featured 
                              $cmad_itemCount = 10;    // Enter the number of Ads 
                             $cmad_packageIds = array(); // Packages Ids in Array Like array(id1,id2,....,idn)

                 echo $this->content()->renderWidget("communityad.ads", array( "show_type" => $cmad_show_type, "itemCount"=>$cmad_itemCount,"packageIds"=>$cmad_packageIds)); ?>

Note: Website administrators who upgrade this plugin on their website to the latest version can configure settings of the new widget “Display Advertisements” to display ads on various widgetized pages as we have placed this widget on all the pages for which you had created "Ad Blocks" from "Manage Ad Blocks" section of this plugin.

Clients who have subscribed to our "Basic" or "Plus" subscription plans can send us a request for upgrading this plugin on their website by creating a new Support Ticket from their SocialEngineAddOns Client Area. If you have not yet subscribed to any of our plans, then you can do so from here to avail the numerous benefits that come with them.