How do I create a custom banner display script?

Hi guys,

I hardly know (or even understand) PHP, so that's why I am posting this in the 'noob'-section. Hopefully someone is friendly enough to help me out.

How do I do the following. I want to show a banner on my website, however not in a static position. And it should only be displayed once.

For example; I have 3 available positions on my website, where I want to display a banner. I have 2 available positions in the main page (top and bottom) and 1 available position on the right side of my website.

Now I need something which does the following; if the banner is shown on position 1 (top of the page) it shouldn't be displayed in position 2 or 3. On the other hand, if the banner is being displayed at position 3 (right side), it shouldn't be displayed anymore in position 1 or 2.

Oh and more thing; position 1 and 2 have the same banner (in dimensions), however position 3 has a smaller banner (in dimensions). So the banner which is displayed at position 3 is different compared to positions 1 and 2.

Can someone please help me out with this? I think it's not difficult for someone who actually knows PHP (unlike me).

I already tried searching on Google, however I couldn't find anything on it (or I am searching in an incorrect way).

Thank you in advance for your help!! Highly appreciated!!

//update

Forgot to mention this; it should be possible to expand this to several more banner-sections and banner formats.

well you could create a random variable which is 1,2 or 3 as a value.

1 = top
2 = bottom
3 = right

and assign each of them a dimension for size.

when the page loads, randomly select a position, and based on that value, you have the dimension?

Thanks for the reply, but how do I do this?

well in php, the rand function works like this:



this gives you a random number between 1 and 3.

in your php source, you could hardcode the dimensions:



for example.

Thanks for the quick response.

So if I would use this (for example):



It should work? And how does it know in what position it has to place the banner? Doesn't really look like a workable solution, but like I said I don't know much about PHP.

well i only quoted the dimensions as an example, the actual dimensions would be determined by whether or not it would be top/bottom/right. You would probably need to identify the banner dimensions before hand.

"200x50" doesnt mean anything unless its being used in context.

Thanks.