[Web Counter Logo] Usage of the Web-Counter This file contains information which should help you use the web-counter. If you have more questions, see the FAQ Page. If you are having problems with the web-counter, please see our Troubleshooting Page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quick Index: Basic | Option Usage | Available Options | Image Size | Character Sets | Colors ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Basic To install a Web-Counter into your page you first must create a counter with the form on the creation page. Afterwards, you can insert something like the following into your HTML code: This is the basic way to use the Web-Counter. The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. If you do indeed use the Web-Counter, we'd appreciate it if you credited it somewhere and put a link to this page. For instance: The page's web-counter says that you are visitor number [Image] There have been [Image] visitors to this page since 8/17/95. Or, feel free to use something a bit more inventive like the following: Mr. Web Counter says you're only visitor [Image]... Keep trying! The transporter logs indicate that you are life-form number [Image] to beam aboard this page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Option Usage There are many other options which control the look of the resulting counter number. To use these additional options, you insert them into your IMG SRC entry by separating them from your counter-name and from each other with the & or ``ampersand'' character. Some options are accompanied by values -- these values are also separated with the & character. For instance, the -d option requires a number argument -- in our example this argument is 6. So your HTML code will go from: To: NOTE: The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. Notice that the -d option is separated from its argument 6 with a & and that the name string is separated from the 6 by another &. Now that we are using the -d&6 option and argument, we might wish to add the -r and -z options as well. Neither of these two options require arguments. So your HTML code will go from: To: NOTE: The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. Notice that the & character separates each of the options as well as any of their required arguments. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Available Options The following is a list of the available options that can be used with the web-counter. -d&number Instructs the web-counter to return an image with a certainly specific number of digits. The number string here should be replaced by a decimal number such as 4 or 6. See the Image Size section below for more details. -c&number Selects a different character set for your digits. The number string here should be replaced by a decimal number from 0 to 27 (currently). See the Character Set section below for more details. -R Selects a random character set for your digits. See the Character Set section below for more details. -f&color Specifies the foreground color of your image. The color string here should be replaced with a 6 position hexadecimal value. See the Image Colors section below for more details. -b&color Specifies the backround color of your image. The color string here should be replaced with a 6 position hexadecimal value. See the Image Colors section below for more details. -e&color Specifies the empty space color of your image. The color string here should be replaced with a 6 position hexadecimal value. See the Image Colors section below for more details. -h Instructs the web-counter to hide the digits and only return a blank image. This is useful if you want to count the number of hits on your page but not show this count to others. -n Instructs the web-counter to only return your counter -- your count is not incremented. This should only be used in special circumstances. -r Specifies that the digits returned will be right-face. If your counter value is 102 and you request 6 digits with the -d&6 option explained above, then the web-counter will by default return 102___ (102 followed by 3 transparent spaces). Use this option if you want it to be ___102 (3 spaces then the number. -z Fills any empty spaces with zeros. If your counter value is 102 and you request 6 digits with the -d&6 option, with this option the web-counter will return 000102. Note that for any zeros to be seen, you must specify a larger number of digits than in your counter value. Please see the above Option Usage section for more information about the proper usage of these options. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Image Size Notice in the above example that by specifying the number of digits with the -d option you are able to provide WIDTH and HEIGHT information in the IMG entry. These values mean that Netscape Enhanced clients can reserve space for the image while drawing the page so you don't have to wait for the image to be loaded before seeing all of page's text. All of your image entries should contain these options. The HEIGHT of the Web-Counter returned image is always 20 (pixels). The WIDTH is calculated as 15 times the number of digits specified. So with 6 digits, the WIDTH should be set to 6 * 15 or 90 (pixels). 10 digits will have a WIDTH of 10 * 15 or 150. Etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Character Sets There a number of available character sets that you can use with Web-Counter. The default is: [Image] An alternate character-set can be selected by adding a -c&number option, where the number string should be replaced to the decimal number of the set. The Web-Counter knows about the character-sets listed below. For instance, to use the 1st alternate you use -c&1: NOTE: The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. This produces: [Image] You also can instruct the web-counter to select a random character set for you each time your counter is requested, by using the -R option (that's a capital R). For example: NOTE: The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. Here are the available character-set numbers followed by a sample of their output. 0 ... [Image] Can't remember where I found this one. 1 ... [Image] Found at The Museum of Counter Art. 2 ... [Image] Created by benjamin@pop3.oro.net. 3 ... [Image] Can't remember where I found this one. 4 ... [Image] Created by Russ. 5 ... [Image] Created by Ryan Terry Sammartino. 6 ... [Image] Created by Ryan Terry Sammartino. 7 ... [Image] Stolen from the back of the Buffalo Tom CD. 8 ... [Image] Created by Russ. 9 ... [Image] Created by Heini Withagen. 10 ... [Image] Can't remember where I found this one. 11 ... [Image] An indian numerals set sneaked to me by Daniel Klein. 12 ... [Image] Thrown my way by Matt Walker. 13 ... [Image] Thrown my way by Matt Walker. 14 ... [Image] Thrown my way by Matt Walker. 15 ... [Image] Created by Michael Teator. 16 ... [Image] Created by D & A. 17 ... [Image] Created by Mac chauvinist Mars Saxman. 18 ... [Image] Can't remember where I found this one. 19 ... [Image] Created by Ben Guaraldi. 20 ... [Image] Created by dudette Binky Melnik. 21 ... [Image] Created by dudette Binky Melnik. 22 ... [Image] Created by dudette Binky Melnik. 23 ... [Image] Created by Jeremy Thompson. 24 ... [Image] Created by Ythan@aol.com. 25 ... [Image] Created by Mikael Lind. 26 ... [Image] Created by Kentaro Saito. 27 ... [Image] Some snowy holiday digits from Mr Richie J Kendrick. Please mail any character-sets to use at comments@digits.com. Please send a gif which, like the above samples, demonstrates every digit. Please note that each digit should fit within a 15 x 20 pixel rectangle -- the entire character set image of digits 0 through 9 should be 150 x 20 pixels. In addition, the images should be 8 bit greyscale since the color is applied later by the user options. Also, we cannot accept all character sets so please understand if yours is not taken. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Image Colors You can specify the colors of the counter with the -b, -f, and -e options. These set the background, foreground, and empty color values respectively. The foreground color is the color of the digits and defaults to bright white (ffffff). The digits are displayed on the background color which defaults to black (000000). The empty color is for blank spaces that don't contain a digit. For instance, here is a lovely shade of purple: [Image] NOTE: The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. In the above example, the -f option is followed by a078ff. This hex string sets a color with the first 2 digits specifying the red value, the next 2 the green, and the final 2 the blue color value. It is just like the Netscape background color format. The empty color defaults to a light grey (bebebe) and is flagged as transparent in the gif that is returned. By specifying the same value for the background and the empty/transparent color, the background will be flagged as transparent as well and you can have the digits float on the page. The following example sets the foreground to be green (00b000) and the background and empty both to a white (f4f4ff) which I use as my background color. [Image] NOTE: The name string in the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have created. One final important note. The foreground gets mixed into the background color so make sure your counter's background color matches your page's background color or image as closely as possible. This is important even if you have made your background and empty colors transparent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Last modified $Date: 1995/12/31 20:27:30 $.