It is a bit tricky.  I contacted iJoomla to determine what output is created if there is no ad available.

Assuming the module is empty (produces no output with the module title off) or assuming if there is no ad available it simply produces a php variable, then the question would be can MetaMod pick up on the variable or the empty output.

iJoomla AdAgency is GPL and is in the JED: http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions … ment/14294

The ad server is local, but even if it was remote, it still has a module you install, so still the same basic concept.

To my knowledge, it does not have an API.

It *does* simply place an empty module there.  However, that can be controlled with Advanced Module Manager to turn it off if it's empty.  So if I use that, then the question is how do I detect if it's been 'hidden' or empty by Advanced Module Manager?

Fun times, fun times :-)

Sounds possible, but maybe not completely practical. I've been looking at the source code for the module, and I think that it would be easier to just edit that a little and piggyback on the logic in there.

Since I don't have the rest of the component, I can't test this, so it may take a little trial and error to get right. But here are some thoughts:

On line 1114 of helper.php in the adagency module, you'll see these lines:

if(!isset($output_this)) {$output_this='';}
$output_this.= $adv_here_bottom;
return $adv_here_top.$output_this;


replace these with:

if(!isset($output_this)) {$output_this='';}
global $ad_output1, $ad_output2;
$ad_output1 = $output_this;
$ad_output2 = $adv_here_top.$output_this.$adv_here_bottom;
return $ad_output2;


This is just to capture the output from the ads and store it in a global so we can retrieve it in MetaMod.

We store the actual ad output separately from the final output that includes the "advertise here" HTML. You might want to make MetaMod decisions based on whether there's "advertise here" text, independently of the other ad output.

So in MetaMod you should be able to do the following:

global $ad_output1, $ad_output2;
if (isset($ad_output1) and $ad_output1 != "") return XXX; // if an ad was displayed
return YYY; // if no ad was displayed


Replace $ad_output1 in the "if" condition with $ad_output2 if you want to include the presence of the "advertise here" text.

I'll be very interested to know if this works! If you are using MetaMod Pro there may be some possible hiccups due to the fact that the MetaMod may be calculated before the AdAgency module. So if this doesn't work, turn off the MetaMod Pro plugin and see if that makes it work. If that makes it work then please let me know and I'll suggest a slightly different way to approach it.

Best regards,
Stephen

Ok, it's not too hard to modify what I wrote earlier to support multiple modules. The module knows its own id number, so we can use that in the variables.

So this is the new replacement text in the helper class:

if(!isset($output_this)) {$output_this='';}
global $ad_output1, $ad_output2;
if (!is_array($ad_output1)) $ad_output1 = array();
if (!is_array($ad_output2)) $ad_output2 = array();
$ad_output1[$module->id] = $output_this;
$ad_output2[$module->id] = $adv_here_top.$output_this.$adv_here_bottom;
return $ad_output2[$module->id];


Then in MetaMod:

$check_module = AAA; // replace AAA with the id of the advert you want to test
global $ad_output1, $ad_output2;
if (isset($ad_output1) and @$ad_output1[$check_module] != "") return XXX; // if an ad was displayed
return YYY; // if no ad was displayed


I think that should work...

Cheers,
Stephen

Hey thanks for passing it on to the iJoomla people. I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to tackle this in a different way... but as long as you can query the results from outside their own module, then I am sure we can work with it.

Cheers,
Stephen