The FIRST THING I need to do to set up a counter on a page is . . . ?

[gettinsmart]

I'm asking this because I just want to know where to get started. I want to create a counter that I can use in different HTML pages with the following characteristcs:
— Uses IMAGES for the numbers
— Counts up to 99,999
— Includes a comma when it hits 10,000 (I have the IMAGE for that comma btw)
— Starts with the number 100
— Hides the first two digit IMAGES (+ the comma) until count reaches 10,000

If I have to buy something to do this I will. I just don't want to deal with banner ads; I want to own this thing outright.

Suggestions?

Skye McLaughlin
[e-mail]

[ozzythaman]

you can use a textfile that you store and modify your counter with help of the fopen&friends functions.

and then you could create the images for numbers 0-9 and comma and then again fopen the textfile with the current count and by parsing the counterstring like this: $counter[n] you can access that number and echo an html image tag accordingly..

this would put number-images next to eachother, if you want the number as a whole, you need to use an image library like gd perhaps.. but to get started you shouldnt go directly for the complicated solution..

and this is only the beginning, every decent counter should filter out reloads done by a single ip address within 24 hours etc..
in order to filter, i would recommend you to use a database like mysql, or if you have the time, you could probably use a text file for that as well..

oz

[gettinsmart]

Oz, thanks. I don't mean to sound so dense but . . . surely it isn't as easy as dropping text into HTML? Or is it? I'm not a programmer, so that's why I asked what the first thing I should do is.

I guess the better way for me to have described it is . . . what do I need to download? What are the basic components, for example I know I need:

— my web page that stores the GIF images which will create the numbers
— the actual HTML that calls the counter (program thingy, sorry, don't know how to refer to it)
— <enter here>
— <enter here>
— <enter here>
— <enter here>

Thanks for helping get me started with this.

[ozzythaman]

very sorry for the delay;

it IS extremely simple to work with textfiles in php, almost too damn easy, now everyone can do it...😉

this is the code:
<?
$fp=fopen("counter.txt","r+");
$contents=fread($fp,filesize("counter.txt"));
$contents=trim($contents);
$contents++;
rewind($fp);
fwrite($fp,$contents,strlen($contents));
echo "Your counter is: ".$contents;

//graphics part:
$contents=(string)$contents; // $contents[$a] doesn't seem to work with numbers so convert to string
for($a=0;$a<strlen($contents);$a++)
{
$filename="image".$contents[$a].".jpg";
//echo "\n<br>Filename: ".$filename."";
echo "<br>\n<img src='gfx/".$filename."'>";
}
?>

enjoy.. know that this could always be done in a more efficient, advanced way.. but this works..

Osman Darcan

[ozzythaman]

oh and just put an empty file with the name counter.txt in the same dir.

(or a file with just a space will do)

[ozzythaman]

improved version, forgot about comma

<?
$fp=fopen("counter.txt","r+");
$contents=fread($fp,filesize("counter.txt"));
$contents=trim($contents);

$contents+=1;
rewind($fp);
fwrite($fp,$contents,strlen($contents));

$contents=number_format($contents,0,".",",");

echo "Your counter is: ".$contents;
//$contents=(string)$contents; // $contents[$a] doesn't seem to work with numbers so convert to string
for($a=0;$a<strlen($contents);$a++)
{
if ($contents[$a]==",")
$filename="imagecomma.jpg";
else
$filename="image".$contents[$a].".jpg";
//echo "\n<br>Filename: ".$filename."";
echo "<br>\n<img src='gfx/".$filename."'>";
}
?>