Rotating banners Topic is solved

[rob-h]

Hi

I've tried everything I can think of, but can't get banners to rotate.

Test:
I've set up some test clients with different banners.
A test category in case that was important.
Set banner module to Pinned, Randomise.

Results:
If I use the banner module with one client, one banner is displayed.
If I use it with no clients and no categories, 4 banners are displayed in a vertical list, in random order.
If I select no clients and the test category, 4 banners are displayed in a vertical list, in random order.
If I pin a couple of banners, those are the top two in the list (when 4 are displayed).

Conclude:
Lots of the banner system is working as I'd expect ie random order, pinning a banner.
But 'Pinned, Randomise' seems not to be working as described.

I'm sure there's a simple answer, but after some hours and much searching I can't see what it is.

System details below.

Rob

System details:
Setting Value
PHP Built On Linux freeweb4.byetcluster.com 2.6.32-896.16.1.lve1.4.54.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed May 2 07:43:19 EDT 2018 x86_64
Database Type mysql
Database Version 5.6.48-88.0
Database Collation latin1_swedish_ci
Database Connection Collation utf8mb4_general_ci
PHP Version 7.4.8
Web Server Apache
WebServer to PHP Interface apache2handler
Joomla! Version Joomla! 3.9.28 Stable [ Amani ] 6-July-2021 15:00 GMT
Joomla! Platform Version Joomla Platform 13.1.0 Stable [ Curiosity ] 24-Apr-2013 00:00 GMT
User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36
--------------------------

[rob-h]

Solved, finally. Thanks to (1). The answer is that in the Banners module, 'Count' which is set to default 5, should be 1 to force the display of multiple banners one at a time, either pinned random or pinned ordered. Perhaps, if you have more than one banner displayed in different positions on a page, Count should be set to more than 1.

The official Joomla doc on banners (2) should be clearer on this. Currently, it says:

---------
Quick Tips
Banners are placed on specific pages by adding Modules of type 'Banners' using the Module Manager.
If you have a series of Banners that you would like to display on one or more pages in random order:
Create the Banners you wish to include, making sure they have the same Client and Category.
Create a Banner Module for this Client and Category, and in the Menu Assignment pick the Menu Selections for the module to display on.
In the Banner Module, set the 'Randomise' value to 'Sticky, Randomise'.
With these settings, the different Banners for that Client and Category will display on the selected pages in random order.
---------

It should mention setting the Count variable to 1.

It's misleading too where it says at the top of that page:

---------
Description
Used to add or edit banners which can be displayed on your Joomla! website. Remember to create at least one Banner Client and one Banner Category before creating any Banners.
---------

No - that's not necessary. You can get rotating banners without either, because in the banner module options, you can select 'No client' and/or 'No category'.

This isn't helped by the page on the Banners Module Manager (3) which says:

---------
Module
Count. (1/2/3/4/5/...). The number of banners to display (default 5)
---------

It would be helpful to add that to display a number of banners in rotation in one position, Count should be set to 1, and a brief explanation of circumstances in which it would be another number.

-----------------------------------

In summary, rotating banners is a REALLY useful feature, and a simple way of varying the appearance of, or information on, a website/page, but the documentation doesn't make it easy to get the feature working.

Rob

(1) https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support ... /rotating/
(2) https://docs.joomla.org/Help39:Componen ... nners_Edit
(3) https://docs.joomla.org/Help39:Extensio ... er_Banners