To activate a counter in a certain HTML-page add something like the following:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/nph-count?arg1= value1&arg2=value2&arg3=value3">
where arg1,2,3 are any of the following supported arguments.width=number Specifies the number of digits in the resulting image.
link=URL of the page on which the counter is located The link-argument is used to keep track of a certain counter. It should be unique for each counter. A good choice is the URL of the page on which the counter image is located.
increase=number; default 1 Specifies the number by which the counter should be increased. This can be used to check how many times a certain page was visited without increasing the counter. In that case specify increase=0. Resetting a certain counter is also possible this way by specifying a negative number here.
show=NO In case you would like to keep track of the number of accesses to a certain page without showing the counter image, specify the above argument.
debug=ON The above is a special argument which can used to check the correct working of the software. You should NOT specify this argument inside a HTML-page. Instead it should be used directly by calling the nph-count program from the 'open URL' window, present in most WWW-browsers, using something like the following: http://www.yourisp.com/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=dummy&debug=ON
This will return an on-line generated HTML-page giving information about possible problems with the installed counter software.
To keep track of a page without anybody knowing:
In the page you would like to monitor insert something like the following:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=link_arg&show=NO">
and on a different HTML-page where you would like the check the counter regularly:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=link_arg&increase=0">
How to reset a certain counter to zero (or any other value):
If you would like to reset a counter to zero, check the counter value and the link argument you used in a HTML-page and open the following URL directly (i.e. by typing it in, in the 'open URL' box):
http://www.yourISP.com/cgi-bin/nph-count?link=link_arg&increase=-value
This will reset the counter to zero (note: the counter value can not go negative).
Replace link_arg with what is used in the counter HTML on the appropriate web page. For example, on most pages the syntax is /~userid/index.html (this is only an example you MUST use whatever is specified on YOUR page for the counter link_arg). Replace value with how much the CURRENT count should be increased or decreased. Use the "-" sign for DECREASING the value, omit the "-" sign for INCREASING the value. For example, if a persons page says it's been hit 20 times, and should read 2000...use 1980 for the VALUE (without the "-" sign).
The program will return a GIF-image of 20 pixels high and 15 * width pixels wide.
This can used to your advantage by specifying the HEIGHT
and WIDTH inside the HTML-page. By doing this, during retrieval of the
page, the WWW-browser can allocate space for the image while
displaying the remainder of the page. Example:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/nph-count?width=5&link=dummy" WIDTH=75 HEIGHT=20>