CGI Counter Counter.exe
=======================
This CGI program is a hit counter for your web pages. It is designed to be
run on a WinNT/Intel box, but probably works on most Win95 systems too.

It might be called from your HTML document like this:

<IMG SRC="Scripts/Counter.exe?font=neat&inc=ctest,total&show=ctest&w=3">

font=neat        : Here the GIF digits is fetched from the directory 'neat'.
                   The font parameter may hold any valid path relative to the
                   directory holding Counter.exe.
                   Examples: font=digits\roman
                             font=..\gifs\letters\led
                   The font directory should contain the files: 0.gif, 1.gif
                   2.gif, ... 8.gif, 9.gif with GIF images of each digit.

inc=ctest,total  : Here two counters are incremented, 'ctest' and 'total'. Any
                   number of counters are valid. If a counter name is new it is
                   added with a value of 1. If the inc= parameter is omitted,
                   no counter is incremented.

show=ctest       : The counter showned in the returned image is counter 'ctest'
                   If this parameter is omitted, parameters font and w has no
                   meaning, and a 1x1 pixel transparent GIF is returned. That
                   way you may count your page hits in counter.txt without
                   having a counter shown on your page.

w=3              : The counter will be three digit wide. If the w= parameter is
                   omitted the counter will use six digits.


The <IMG> tag used as example above would:

* Increment counters ctest and total
* Return a GIF file showing the value of counter 'ctest' in a 3-digit counter
  using the font neat.



The counter data file Counter.txt
=================================
The counter values are stored in the file counter.txt which will be created in
the directory holding Counter.exe. If you edit this file you must keep the
column positions intact:
Col 1-15  Counter name, left-justified.
Col 16    Space character
Col 17-31 Counter value, right-justified.

To reset all counters to zero, just delete counter.txt. To reset one counter
to zero just delete the corresponding line in counter.txt



The counter control file Countctl.txt
=====================================
The first time Counter.exe is called it creates the file Countctl.txt in the
directory holding Counter.exe. This file may be edited to change the way the
counter works. The file isn't an ordinary .ini file but the layout is similar.

Countctl.txt contains two sections: [ValidUsers] and [DontCount].

The [ValidUsers] section is used to prohibit others from using your counter
on their pages. Whenever counter.exe is called it compares the URL of the
page calling it with the URL:s found in this section. The beginning of the
calling pages URL must equal one of the lines in [ValidUsers]. If it doesn't,
a broken image is returned.

The auto-created file will place one line in this section: The domain name
of the refering pages URL.

On our server

[ValidUsers]
http://www.webcom.se/

prevents Counter.exe to be called from pages outside our domain.
(To be precise: It may still be called from anywhere, but it will return a
broken image when called from outside.)

Note: * If you want to allow Counter.exe to be called from anywhere place
        the line 'http' (without the apostrophes) in this Section.



The other section, [DontCount] holds a list of IP addresses. If the IP
address of the client calling Counter.exe is found in this list, no increment
is done of any counter value. The values are shown as normal though. This
function was implemented because we didn't want ourself to be counted as
visitors on our own pages. If you want to filter yourself out, just add a line
with your IP address in this section.

The IP addresses may use asterisks as wildcards for any of the four numbers
in the IP address. Ex: 198.100.*.* would stop all users with IP addresses
beginning with 198.100 from incrementing your counters.

The auto-created file will place one line in this section: The IP address of
the client user.



Notes:  * Blank lines may be inserted anywhere in Countctl.txt to make it
          easier to read.
        * Comments may be included at the end of any line. A semicolon is
          used to indicate that the rest of the line is a comment.
        * The auto-created file will allow the counter to be used from the
          same domain that used it the first time, and only from that domain.
        * The auto-created file will count all visitors except the one that
          called it the first time.

The file Countctl.txt could look like this:

-------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8<---- CUT HERE
[ValidUsers]
http://www.webcom.se/          ; Allow only Webcom pages to use counter

[DontCount]
198.100.10.*                   ; Dont count peoples at our office
198.100.11.1                   ; Dont count Bob either
-------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8<---- CUT HERE

Questions about Counter.exe should go to pedro@algonet.se