Poorcount

    CRETEIL, FRANCE
    06/05/99
    Page Designed
    for at least
    1024x768 Display

Poorcount is a simple package who's provide an easy way for
Webmasters to display hour,date and numbers of hits in a page.
Also it can be used in an user's home page. I's some samples scripts for
Gracula, the Graphic Counter Language and the images ressource files.
for performances optimize the images files are at .gd format, the
Graphic library for Gif creation.

A very few things to say, and my English is very bad.
I've spent many hours for this package and I'm using it on the Web
server I'm running just for fun, I've a PPP account. I've done
Poorcount because during creation of my home page and I was unable to
find anything quickly usable about counters on Web pages.
And I've spent one afternoon to do an RPM distrib (Much more to do the
package !, just to learn how to create an RPM archive. I'm absolutly
ignorant in programmation and this will be probably the only package of
life ! Many hours for a very poor result and I think I'll find in a few
days some very powerfull tools to do easily counters 10 times better than this.

It's a lot of work to maintain an RPM package, updating docs etc so please, let me
know if you are using Poorcount or if you find it nice to begin in G.C.L..
It's useless to lost my time to put my job on line for nobody :-))
If I don't reveive a few mails, I will keep my new counters and not pollute
the net anymore !

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QUICK INSTALL

RPM DISTRIBUTION :

You can get poorcount here and Gracula on the main Gracula ftp site or here

Poorcount is designed for Apache server in a normal RH
distribution (tested here on 5.2) and path with rootdir
/home/httpd, if it is your config just unrpm Gracula and poorcount :

rpm --install gracula-version.i386.rpm
rpm --install poorcount-version.i386.rpm

and type http://yourhost/poorcount.html in your brownser.

TAR.GZ DISTRIBUTION :

Get poorcount here and Gracula on the main Gracula ftp site or here

        tar -zxvf gracula-version.tar.gz
        cd gracula-version
        make
        make install
        tar -zxvf poorcount-version.tar.gz
        cd poorcount-version
        edit the Makefile file to match your path
        make all
        make install

and type http://yourhost/poorcount.html in your brownser.

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LICENSE COPYING CHANGELOG

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INSTALLING :

    First you'll need Gracula , the Graphic Counter Language compilator
    (©  1999 G. Adam Stanislav, All Rights Reserved)
    See in the Gracula package the License information.

Download it here :

Download Gracula

I've done an RPM distrib an I hope it will be soon on line.
If you get it just unrpm it :

rpm --install gracula-version.i386.rpm

If you don't find it take the tar.gz

    Download too the packages g.gcl.tar.gz and gd-version.tar.gz, there is links
    on this page, they are very small and You'll need it to design your own
    counters.

Then :

    tar -zxvf gracula-version.tar.gz
    cd gracula-version
    make
    make install

Now install Poorcount :

rpm --install poorcount-version.i386.rpm

If you want change the path (if you web server have a non RH standard
root path) you have to install the tar.gz distribution :

    tar -zxvf poorcount-version.tar.gz
    cd poorcount-version
    edit the Makefile file to match your path
    make all
    make install
    In Redhat distribution if you don't launch your web server as user
    nobody (The RH 5.2 default) you must do a chown for all the GCI scripts *.gcl.

Lauch your Web server :

/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start

And now Launch your brownser and type:

http://localhost/poorcount.html

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DESIGNING YOUR WEB PAGES

Counter :

    To change the count of a counter just edit the count
    line in the /home/httpd/cgi-bin/poorcount/*.cgl script
    you use, it's the last line of the script.
    Warning ! On a running counter you will lost some hits, then
    just type (Thanks Adam !) :
    echo count +=1000 >> /home/httpd/cgi-bin/poorcount/*.gcl
    will add 1000 to the current value.
    Similary you can do :
    echo count -=1000 Decrease 1000
    echo count ++ Increase by 1

Date :

Here you must pass a command to Gracula, the default is hits counter :

Edit the line "count = xx" in /cgi-bin/poorcount/COLOR_YOU_WANT.gcl
and replace xx by the first number you want your counter to display

Time :

<IMG SRC=A HREF="/cgi-bin/poorcount/COLOR_YOU_WANT.gcl?-m">
Don't want seconds displayed ? Remove the line "second" in the *.gcl file.

Customised counters :

    *H.gcl :
    These scripts can only be used when you don't want to display
    second in the time.

*V.gcl :
These are verticals counters.

*B.gcl :
Bordered counters.

Clock.gcl :
Align it right ! Not very nice if not used as clock or date displayer.

Astre.gcl :
Not very nice if not used as Clock and with black Background.

year2000*.gcl :
Year 2000 countdowns in (s)econds (d)ays and (h)ours.

Other :

- See the G.C.L Faq and docs at the url upper.

- See the Gracula commands, type in a shell: /usr/local/bin/gracula -h

    - Type gracula -e gclfile.gcl, this will comment the gcl file.
      Tips : Don't remove the comments, they will be removed
      at the next run of Gracula on the file.

- See the commented gcl file in the package g,gcl.tar.gz

Click to subscribe the Gracula mailing list

    If you are changing something in a script be sure the
    owner of the script stay the owner of the pid of your
    Web server and mode 755.

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Main package Files :

    /home/htppd/cgi-bin/poorcount/poorcount.gcl             The sample poorcount couter.
    /home/htppd/cgi-bin/poorcount/*.gcl                     many scripts for differents counters
                                                            numbers.
    /home/htppd/html/poorcount.html                         A sample page displaying what you
                                                            can do.
    /usr/local/share/gracula/pix/poorcount/poorcount.gd     The poorcout image ressource file.
    /usr/local/share/gracula/pix/poorcount/*.gd             Images files.

    Documentations :

    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/text/CHANGELOG           History
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/text/COPYING             Copying informations
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/text/LICENCE             License informations
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/text/Readme.txt          Text documentation
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/html/index.html          Html documentation
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/html/poorcount1.html
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/html/poorcount2.html
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/html/pics/poorcount.jpg
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/html/pics/scr1.jpg
    /usr/doc/poorcount-version/html/pics/scr2.jpg

PROBLEM : U see a screen with "/usr/local/bin/gracula not found" and
Gracula is really in /usr/local/bin

              I think u have tried the scripts before installing Gracula.
              Shutdown X
              /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop
              Type /usr/local/bin/gracula -h in a TERMINAL, NOT UNDER X
              /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start
              Restart X
              Now it MUST run !
              Some command are more or less useless and many
              people will laugh from my lack of using Linux but by the hell
              that's running !
              In fact Linux remember when he don't
              find a command and the second time he don't try to find it.

Good luck !

Please if you are using this package just send me a line (With a url !) at

anamorphose@free.fr.