How to Use Your Counter
This file contains information which should help you use your counter.
If you have more questions, see the FAQ Page.
If you are having problems with your counter, please see our Troubleshooting Page.
[
Basic |
Option Usage |
Available Options |
Image Size |
Character Sets |
Font |
Colors
]
Basic
To install a 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:
<IMG SRC="http://counter.digits.com/wc/name">
This is the basic way to use your counter. The name string
at the end of the above HTML code should be replaced with the name of
the counter that you have created.
NOTE: If you are using our free counter servers, we ask you
to credit the WebCounter system somewhere on your home-page by using
its name or logo. Please also put a link to the following URL.
http://www.digits.com/
For instance, you might use the following:
The page's WebCounter count
says that you are visitor number 
Or, feel free to use something a bit more inventive like the
following:
Mr. Web Counter says
you're only visitor ... Keep trying!
The WebCounter transporter logs
indicate that you are life-form number 
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 ``forward slash'' 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
4. So your HTML code will go from:
<IMG SRC="http://counter.digits.com/wc/name">
To:
<IMG SRC="http://counter.digits.com/wc/-d/4/name">
NOTE: The name string at the end of the above HTML
code should be replaced with the name of the counter that you have
created.
Notice that the name string is separated from the -d
option with a / and that the -d is
separated from its argument 4 by another /.
Now that we are using the -d/4 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:
<IMG SRC="http://counter.digits.com/wc/-d/4/name">
To:
<IMG SRC="http://counter.digits.com/wc/-d/4/-r/-z/name">
NOTE: The name string at the end of 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. Also, see that the 4
argument is still right next to the -d option (still
separated by a /). This should be true for all options
which have an argument.
Available Options
The following is a list of the available options that can be used with
your counter.
- -d/number
- Returns 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.
You may also want to use the -r (right-face) and
-z (zero-fill) options below depending on how you want your
counter to display.
- -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
Page for more details.
- -R
- Selects a random character set for your digits. See the Character Set Page 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 Colors Page below for more details.
- -b/color
- Specifies the background color of your image. The color
string here should be replaced with a 6 position hexadecimal value.
See the Colors Page 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 Colors Page for more
details.
- -h
- Hides 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
- Only return your count -- 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 12 and you request 4 digits with the -d/4 option, then the system will by
default return 12__ (12 followed by 2 transparent spaces).
Use this option if you want it to be __12 (2 spaces then
the number.
- -z
- Fills any empty spaces with zeros. If your counter value is 12
and you request 4 digits with the -d/4
option, then the system will by default return 12__ (12
followed by 2 transparent spaces). Use this option if you want it to
be 0012 (2 zeroes then the number). 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
By specifying the number of digits with the -d/number option you know the size of the
image that will be returned. With this information, you can specify
WIDTH and HEIGHT information in the IMG entry. These values allow Netscape
Enhanced clients to 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 returned image is always 20 (pixels). The WIDTH is
calculated as 15 times the number of digits specified. So if
you are using the d/4 option, the WIDTH should be set to 4
* 15 or 60 (pixels).
<IMG SRC="http://counter.digits.com/wc/-d/4/name" WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=20>
10 digits will have a WIDTH of 10 * 15 or 150, etc.. The HEIGHT is
always 20.
NOTE: If you wish your counter to be a different size, you
can certainly tune the HEIGHT and WIDTH of the IMG and the browsers
should scale the image appropriately. The image may look better if
the WIDTH and HEIGHT values are scaled evenly. For instance, instead
of a 4 digit image having a WIDTH of 60 and a HEIGHT of 20 you can set
it to a WIDTH of 120, HEIGHT 40. This should double the size of your
counter. Understand that some character sets will scale better than
others.
Additional Information
|
