ReadMe for hitcounter v1.0 by RogerDouglass.com

*** This product is delivered in an 'as is' basis and no warranty
*** of any kind is either assumed or implied nor is any guarantee of
*** suitability for your web site.  We are not responsible for any
*** loss of data, any site downtime, nor any other problems
*** that could be associated with this software.

Good, now that that's over....

REQUIREMENTS:  ASP-enabled web server that can utilize an Access DB.  Generally speaking, a Windows host works best.

To install this hit counter, unzip the hitcounter.zip file and follow these steps:

1.  Create a new folder at the root of your web.  Name it 'hitcounter'.  This name can be changed if you need to.  If you need to name it something different, just don't use spaces or any special characters in the name. 

2.  Copy the entire "numerals" directory and the file "hitinclude.asp" to this newly created directory.

3.  Copy the database file "hitcounter.mdb" to a directory where you have read/write access.  Normally you can check whith your host where to put this file.  The script comes pre-configured for a FrontPage-enabled website's fpdb folder but that is not a requirement.

4.  Open the "/hitcounter/hitinclude.asp" file with your favorite editor.  (If you created a different folder name in Step 1, substitute it here.)  Edit the line at or near line 12:

DBFile = "/fpdb/hitcounter.mdb"

to make sure it points to where you copied the database in Step 3.


5.  Add this include line to any ASP page where you want the counter to show:

<!-- #include virtual="/hitcounter/hitinclude.asp" -->

6.  Save and Browse to the page you added the counter to in step 5.


ERRORS:

Generally errors have to do with either read/write access to the database or misconfigured configuration strings.  Since this is a new product, please send me an email with any error messages that you encounter and I will assit you in any way I can.  It will help me to refine this error procedure better.


Customizing

Generally speaking, it should work with very little configuration.  However you will probably want to customize it to your site.

Text or Images?

you can choose between text or images by setting the line in the hitincludes.asp file at or near Line 28:

imagesOn = "yes"

Changing that line to anything other than "yes" will turn images off and the script will deliver the page count in a text string.  Using "yes" there will deliver the page count in a series of images.

This script comes pre-configured with royalty-free .GIF images as the default image set but you can change them to any set you choose to use as long as they are named 0.gif thru 9.gif.  I highly recommend .GIF images for there transparency and flexibilty.  If you want to retain the original set but use your own, a simple way is to copy your own images to a new directory inside the numerals folder.  For example:

/hitcounter/numerals/style2/

might be a good choice.  Copy your new .GIF images to that folder and edit (in hitincludes.asp) theline at or near Line 30:

imageDirectory = "style1"

substituting your new image folder name.  In our example the line would be this:

imageDirectory = "style2"

To use images other than .GIF files, edit the line at or near Line 79 (in hitinclude.asp) at the end:

Response.write("<img src='/hitcounter/numerals/"& imageDirectory & "/" & mid(myHitString,h+1,1) &".gif'>")

to match your existing image type.  For example, if your images were 0.PNG thru 9.PNG:

Response.write("<img src='/hitcounter/numerals/"& imageDirectory & "/" & mid(myHitString,h+1,1) &".png'>")

Check www.rogerdouglass.com for more assitance.