Installing plugins in the OpenX Ad Server is not hard, just follow the steps below.
Requirements
- You need to have your own OpenX Ad Server installation. Adding plugins is not supported on OpenX Hosted accounts.
- The ability to add plugins was first introduced in version 2.8 of the OpenX software. Older versions do not support plugins.
- You need to be logged in as an Administrator to be able to install new plugins, or to upgrade existing plugins. Only administrators have access to the plugins overview.
Steps to install a new plugin
To install a new plugin in your OpenX Ad Server, please check the requirements above, and then follow these steps:
- Log in with a user name and password that gives you access to the Administrator account.
- Make sure you are working in the Administrator account. If not, use the selector in the top right hand corner of the screen to switch to “Working as Administrator account”.
- You will now see two additional tabs appearing just below the logo on the left, “Configuration” and “Plugins”.
- Click the “Plugins” tab to open an overview of all plugins currently installed in your OpenX installation.
- Just below the “Install new plugin” label, click the “Browse…” button and navigate to the folder on your computer where you stored the downloaded file for the plugin you want to install.
- Once you have found and selected the file, you will be back in the Plugins screen.
- Now click the “Install” button next to it.
- The system will now check and install the new plugin. This usually takes only a few seconds. Some plugins will need to create their own tables in the database. In that case it can take a little bit longer, depending on the number of tables.
- Once the installation of the plugin is complete, the screen will refresh and you will see the new plugin appearing in the overview.
Steps to upgrade an existing plugin
If you’ve received a new version of a plugin that’s already in your system, here are the steps to perform the upgrade:
- Log in with a user name and password that gives you access to the Administrator account.
- Make sure you are working in the Administrator account. If not, use the selector in the top right hand corner of the screen to switch to “Working as Administrator account”.
- You will now see two additional tabs appearing just below the logo on the left, “Configuration” and “Plugins”.
- Click the “Plugins” tab to open an overview of all plugins currently installed in your OpenX installation.
- Click the “Details” link for the plugin that you want to upgrade.
- A new screen will appear showing you details of the selected plugin, including version number, creation date and author information.
- Just below the label “Upgrade this plugin”, click the “Browse…” button and navigate to the folder on your computer where you’ve stored the file you received for the upgraded plugin.
- Once you’ve found and selected the appropriate file, click the “Upgrade” button.
- Your OpenX system will now upgrade the plugin, which includes a check of the newly uploaded file. Depending on the number of changes that need to be performed, this may take only a few seconds or longer.
- After the upgrade is completed, you should see the new version’s details displayed on the screen.
Great idea Erik.
Congratulations on being the first to take the step ahead. While I haven’t looked into the 2.8 plugin framework in greater detail, this, hopefully will allow me to stay up-to-date and contribute to the system.
Hi Rithish,
Thanks for your message. If you have ideas or suggestions for plugins, please let us know.
Hi Erik,
the video ads plugins and loads of examples of how to use them are available on http://openvideoads.org
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your message. I’d like to ask you to contact us so we can create a page here, describing your plugin with a link to your site.
Hello Erik,
I installed the plugin! Works fine. Is it possible to give the plugin more options, such as on campaign level?
Keep up the good work!
Wouter
Hi Wouter,
Thank you for your comment (this is referring to the plugin that’s mentioned in the Statistics as Graphs post). We’re going to be collecting all feedback and suggestions and use those to decide what to put in a future version of this plugin.
Good luck Erik. Really exciting to see you and the team working together on this. I’m sure we’re all watching on with interest.
cheers,
Oliver George
Thanks for this cool plugin, but I am receiving the error -> “The uploaded file index.php was not unpacked ” after clicking install from the plugin menu. Any suggestions on what might be happening?
Thanks,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your feedback. We received your message through our contact form too, and have responded to that.
Erik
We heard back from Brian. It turned out he accidentally tried to upload and install one of the files inside the zipped file instead of the whole zipped file. Now that he’s corrected that, all is well. He wrote:
For others: we have a page with instructions on how to install a plugin in OpenX.
Hi,
Nice one!
Please set the default (first click) to shorter time and maybe you could enable this plugin to show any statistic in graph mode.
Hi Francesco,
Thanks for your feedback.
The decision to display an entire year was made based on the only suitable kind of graph that the Google Visualization API offered to display impressions and clicks, but I agree it implies a long wait time for busy servers. We’re evaluating different types of client side graphing systems, and once we find a good one we should be able to decrease initial load times by allowing the user to pick the desired interval.
And yes, I expect the next versions to have more than just the global history graph. I see this as a preview of what the plugin might be capable of and as a way to get user feedback to be able to pick the right direction in terms of feature set.
Best regards
–
Matteo
Hi Matteo,
As far as client side charting solutions are concerned, you might want to look at Open Flash Chart v2. It’s really flexible, can be fed with either JSON or table data and has that “cool” factor :)
Cheers,
Bernard
Hi Bernard,
Thanks for your comment. With version 1.0 of the plugin, we have in fact already switched to Open Flash Chart v2!
Thanks, Erik Geurts
I’m so glad that The Guru at http://www.OpenXTips.com posted about this site! I’m anxious for better functionality from OpenX to give Google a run for their money.
Here’s a plugin I’ve been waiting on for about 9 years (since PhpAdsNew): The ability for advertisers to signup, submit ads and have their ads/campaigns put into a queue for manager review. Gosh that would make my life easier!
Wishing you the best with this new site!
I’m evaluating OpenX and looking for reporting that gives the IP address for clicks, impressions, etc. Is there an existing plugin out there? Any plans to develop one in the near future?
Hi Caroleigh,
Thanks for your response. I’m sure someone might be able to make something like that, although recording the IP address for every impression might turn out to be an issue with scaling. I’m curious, though: what would you be using this extra data for? It might even be a privacy issue.
Regards,
Erik Geurts
on behalf of the Adserverplugins.com team
Hi Erik
What a good idea!
I have an idea for a plugin (quite a big one) that integrates our directory software (you can see it in our site) with OpenX.
I am talking with OpenX directly at the moment. Would be great if you could get in touch.
Merry xmas and happy new year!
Tom
Looks awesome, thanks for the great work.
I get a blank screen on:
/www/admin/plugins/apStatsGraphsUI/index.php
when I visit, even with display_errors On and E_ALL. It’s enabled and Diagnose doesn’t throw any errors, am I missing something?
Adam
Hi Adam,
Thank you very much for your feedback. Here are a few things to check:
- do you mean you’re getting a completely blank screen, or is it just the graph that’s not appearing?
- this plugin has been tested with OpenX Ad Server versions 2.8.2 and 2.8.3
- if you’ve used an earlier version of this plugin, please clear your browser cache and try again
If you still can’t get this to work, please contact us so we can work with you directly.
Thanks!
Erik Geurts
Great work! Thanks for this plugin. Could you please give me some help on how to translate the titles like “Daily Stats” and “Advertiser History Graph” to some other language? I tried translating apStatsGraphsUI.xml after installation and uploading it again but the changes were not visible.
Hi David,
for the time being you might want to try and clear the cache files in var/cache. That should regenerate them from your updated xml file.
This reminds me that I need to do some research to see if plugin menu entries can somehow be localised.
Best regards
–
Matteo