Comments on: How to Customize Your Random Header Images http://www.pearsonified.com/theme/neoclassical/customize-random-header-images/ A 3-column template system with rotating header images Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:56:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Bill Weissbard http://www.pearsonified.com/theme/neoclassical/customize-random-header-images/comment-page-10/#comment-1076 Bill Weissbard Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:56:42 +0000 http://pearsonified.com/theme/neoclassical/customize-random-header-images/#comment-1076 WOW !!!! I love this theme! I was looking for a 3 column theme for my new blog. I wanted to put some affiliate links in the third col. I was impressed first that this theme worked well right out of the box (not all themes do you know) and I like the explanation of rotating banners in this post because it was very clear and to the point. Thanks for that - Chris. I decided to extend the code to rotate my affiliate links as well. Here's how I did it. There are three steps - do them in this order. 1] create a new file named "rotating_affiliates.php" this goes at the same level as the sidebar.php file in your hosting account. 2] add this code to the bottom of the "sidebar.php" file, just above the "categories" section. <!-- This the new path to rotating affiliate banners --> <!-- This ends the path to rotating affiliate banners --> 3] Last step is to build the "rotating_affiliates.php" code. Create an array of your affiliate links, the form is; <?php // This section includes all the affiliate links and banners $affiliate[1]="<a></a> "; The usemap attribute scales a 300x250 banner so it fits right in the available column space. Construct as many links as you want ; $affiliate[2]= $affiliate[3]= etc. I created 9 links for this site ?> Next you need code to randomize the links. I chose to display 3 links at a time, and rotate them on refresh. This code helps ensure that you don't repeat any banner more than once in each refresh and ensures that the 3 banners displayed are not the same ones you displayed on the last refresh. <!-- Here's a non-repeating random number generator courtesy of www.phpbuilder.com --> <?php // Populate first 3 positions of a new array with the last instances of the displayed indexes for ($k=1; $k<=3; $k++) { $test_array[k]=$display_affiliate[$k]; } $nonrepeatarray = array(); for($m = 1; $m <=3; $m++) { $rand = rand(1,9); //ensure value isn't already in the array //if it is, recalculate the rand until we //find one that's not in the array while(in_array($rand,$nonrepeatarray)) { $rand = rand(1,9); } //add it to the array $nonrepeatarray[$m+3] = $rand; } for ($p=1; $p<=3; $p++) { $display_affiliate[$p]=$nonrepeatarray[$p+3]; } // This section displays the banners selected by the random number generator for ($i=1; $i<=$display; $i++) { echo "".$affiliate[$display_affiliate[$i]].""; } ?> Hope you like this, Bill WOW !!!!
I love this theme!
I was looking for a 3 column theme for my new blog. I wanted to put some affiliate links in the third col. I was impressed first that this theme worked well right out of the box (not all themes do you know) and I like the explanation of rotating banners in this post because it was very clear and to the point. Thanks for that – Chris.

I decided to extend the code to rotate my affiliate links as well. Here’s how I did it. There are three steps – do them in this order.

1] create a new file named “rotating_affiliates.php” this goes at the same level as the sidebar.php file in your hosting account.

2] add this code to the bottom of the “sidebar.php” file, just above the “categories” section.

3] Last step is to build the “rotating_affiliates.php” code. Create an array of your affiliate links, the form is;

<?php

// This section includes all the affiliate links and banners

$affiliate[1]=" “;

The usemap attribute scales a 300×250 banner so it fits right in the available column space. Construct as many links as you want ;
$affiliate[2]=
$affiliate[3]= etc. I created 9 links for this site
?>
Next you need code to randomize the links. I chose to display 3 links at a time, and rotate them on refresh. This code helps ensure that you don’t repeat any banner more than once in each refresh and ensures that the 3 banners displayed are not the same ones you displayed on the last refresh.