• Features
  
• Digit styles (all platforms)
  
• Counter options (all platforms)
  
• How to use other styles of digits (all platforms)
  
• How to create an image strip (all platforms)
  
• Compositing with an image
  
• Examples (all platforms)
  
• Error messages (all platforms)
  
• Copyright (all platforms)
  

Does not require server-side includes.

Countdown to a specific date (past or future). Countdown can be done in reference to local server time or any timezone with the parameter timezone. Two new keywords are added: display=countdown and cdt=year;month;day;hr;min;sec. If display=countdown is used and no cdt is specified, the default countdown to Year 2000 is assumed. The current time and date can be displayed below the countdown if the sfd=T is used. Please look at the Options section for details. Also look at the Examples section to see how it looks.
(new in this release)

Site admin can decide to count or ignore page reload via a keyword ( count_reload) in configuration file. If the site admin decides to count reload (count_reload=Yes), then a user can choose to count or ignore reload with parameter reload=T or F. Note, if the side admin decided to ignore reload, then the user preference is ignored.
(new in this release)

The counter image can be composited with a base image to a specific location. New keyword: xy=x;y (Sub-image x and y co-ordinate). The parameter align can be used to specify the width and height of the counter image in the <img src= tag while calling the counter. The implication is, if the counter is the first thing in a large table, the browser will not have to wait to calculate the width and height of the counter image before loading the rest. Please look at the Examples section to see how it works.
(new in this release)

The site admin can log the counter messages in the log file or ignore the messages by specifying a keyword and value (log_error_messages=Yes or No) in the configuration file in section [options].
(new in this release)

The maximum number of digits the counter can count and display can be very high. By default the maximum number of hits can be (10^80)-1, which is a very large number (99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999), that is if data is not edited by hand, practically it is impossible to overflow the counter.

Wild card can be used in the IPs in ignore host block in the config file. There is no limit for number of IPs (as long as memory is not exhausted).

Wild card can be used in the hosts/IPs in the auth block of the config file. There is no limit for number of hosts/IPs (as long as memory is not exhausted).

The counter can count with image= parameter if df= parameter is specified.

Count or ignore Consecutive reloading a page from the same host a configurable option in the count.cfg file (used to be a compile-time option). (Added on: Dec-13-1998).

"cache" and expires" parameters can be used to change the caching behavior of certain browsers.

Date in clock is Year 2000 safe. Note, you will not see full year in the counter until the year 2000 arrives unless you use the parameter fy, or specify YYYY with the option dformat.

Uses image strip as well as individual digit images. Using an image strip reduces disk i/o significantly, therefore, it's faster. A program (mkstrip) is supplied to create an image strip from individual digit images.

Comma can be displayed after every 3rd digit from right.

Any one color of the image can be changed on the fly.

Uses netmasks to mask out a range of hosts in the network or the entire network.

Automatic datafile creation, strict mode, use of rgb color database can be controlled from the cfg file at run time.

Any arbitrary GIF file can be displayed. Frame and other attributes of the counter can be applied to the GIF file.

Count 2.0 is backward compatible with Count1.5's URL. One thing to note, the keyword wxh has no meaning in Count 2.0. It was used in Count 1.5 to specify digit dimensions. In Count 2.0 it is not required, because the digit dimensions are determined automatically. Therefore, you can use variable width digit images in this version.

Reasonable default for all QUERY_STRING parameters.

The same program can be used to display time or date.

The time and date of any timezone in the world can be displayed. The time can be displayed in 12 or in 24 hour format.

Supports digit images with variable width.

Counter can be displayed without incrementing (for monitoring etc.)

A literal digit string can be displayed.

A random digit string can be displayed.

The color of the digits can be negated.

The counter can be rotated (only integral of 90 degrees, 90,180,270). The default rotation is 270 degrees.

An ornamental 3D frame can be wrapped around the counter image with user defined thickness and color at run time.

The frame and transparent color can be a name (e.g. red,green,pink etc.). The color can be specified as a hex string, e.g. ffffff, ff0000 etc. as well as RGB triplets as before.

Single program for any number of users for any number of web pages.

Any color of the counter image can be made transparent at run time.

Style of digits can be specified at run time.

Authorized host names can be in the configuration file. Authorized hosts are those which can run the counter remotely. Do not confuse this with visitors from certain hosts.

IP filtering through a configuration file at run time. Any number of hosts can be ignored from counting. A netmask can be used to filter out a specific range of hosts in a network or to filter out the entire network. It's a good idea to ignore your own host or entire domain. Gen-conf program will let you create the configuration file interactively.

Data file locking. Data file will not get clobbered by simultaneous Count.cgi processes. NOTE, locking may not work if the counter's datafile is on a NFS partition.

Maximum number of digits can be set or counter can be displayed with exact number of digits at run time.

User will be able to specify a start-up counter value at run time. This will take effect if the data file does not exist. You will be prompted by the configuration program if you want this feature or not.

If you do not want to display the counter but like to keep the hits on your page, sh=0 can be defined in the QUERY_STRING at run time. It will write a 1x1 transparent GIF image to the browser but the counter in the data file will be incremented properly.

The digits used in this program can be individual GIF files or all the digits can be in a single image strip. This gives you the flexibility of using digits of your choice. If you have individual digit images, they are named as zero.gif, one.gif,.... nine.gif, colon.gif, am.gif, pm.gif, comma.gif, dash.gif, d.gif, h.gif, m.gif and s.gif.If you have an image strip, the strip is named as strip.gif. At run-time, the directory of the images is simply used to specify a different style. Therefore, a single program can display digits of various styles. Here are the supplied digit styles. I will not supply individual digit images anymore. All the styles of digits are supplied as a single image strip. Note the order of the digits (you will know about it later).

Style: A
Style: B
Style: bang
Style: beach
Style: C
Style: CBalls
Style: cd
Style: cdd
Style: cdr
Style: chalk
Style: D
Style: E
Style: eggs
Style: fancy
Style: frozen
Style: lcd
Style: led
Style: neat
Style: odometer
Style: oldstyle
Style: scoreboard
Style: sf
Style: SGrey
Style: timex

For a huge collection of GIF digits, check out the Digit Mania page. If you design some cool digits and like to share with others try sending them to Digit Mania instead of me.

Some other sites:

• http://www.webdigits.com/

This program will work with any digits from the Digit Mania page. To use those digits, create subdirectories say, F, G, H, foo etc. inside the digits directory and rename the images to zero.gif, one.gif..nine.gif. I suggest you create an image strip out of these digits and use it instead of using individual images.

Before using these digits, please read the sections How to use other styles of digits and How to create an image strip.

Counter options (all platforms)
[Originally written in HTML table by Kevin]

Keywords

align	- align counter image on a base image.
cache	- and expires are used to change caching behavior of the browsers.
chcolor	- change one color of the counter image.
cdt	- countdown target date.
cdf	- countdown from date.
comma	- show comma after 3rd digits from right.
dd	- digit directory.
degrees or angle	- rotation angle of the image.
df	- counter data file.
dformat	- date format.
display	- counter, clock, date, countdown or image.
frgb	- Frame color.
ft	- Frame thickness
fy	- Full year (all digits).
image	- Display a GIF image.
incr	- Increment the counter or not.
istrip	- Use strip.gif or not.
lit	- Show literal string.
md	- Maximum number of digits to display.
negate	- Show the negative image of counter.
offset	- Offset from the counter image from the edge of the base image while compositing.
pad	- Left pad with zeros or not.
reload	- Count page reload or not.
rotate	- Rotate the counter image.
sdhms	- Show the day, hr, min, sec in countdown or not.
sfd	- Show "from" date while showing countdown.
sh	- Show the counter or keep it hidden.
srgb, prgb	- Change source color to pen color.
st	- Start count number.
timezone	- Show time of that time zone.
tformat	- Time format, 12 or 24 hr.
tr	- Transparency On or Off.
trgb	- Transparency color.
xy	- Composite the counter at x,y location of a base image.

Parameter	Name	Description	Default
cache=B expires=X	These parameters can be used to change the image caching behavior of certain web browsers.	The boolean value of cache tells the browser whether to cache the image or not. The integer value of expires specifies the cache expiration duration time in seconds. If you specify cache=F, the browser will be hinted to cache the image for the amount of seconds specified with expires parameter. if cache=F and expires=0, then the browser should not cache the image, that is whenever you come back to the page, the counter or clock will be refreshed. Use this feature with discretion as it may increase load on your system. The expires parameter is meaningless without cache=F, that means, if cache=T is specified, expires parameter is ignored and the counter will not generate any HTTP Expires header. This is the default behavior. The valid values for the boolean parameter cache is Y,N,F,T 1 or 0. The valid integer range of the expires parameter is between 0 and 604800 (7 days). Note, these parameters will work with browsers that support the HTTP Expires header as specified in HTTP specification. By default, most web browsers cache the image received from the counter. That means, if someone visits your page and comes back after a while, the counter or clock does not get refreshed.	cache=T expires=0
reload=B	Count page reload if the site admin configured the counter to support it. (Added on: Dec-05-1998)	If the site admin configured the counter to count reload, users can choose to count reload (default) or ignore reload. The site admin allows count reloading by yes, 1 or true in the [options] section of the configuration file with the keyword count_reload. Note, if the admin decided to ignore reload count (count_reload=No), user preference is ignored. The valid values for the Boolean parameter reload are Y, N, T, F, 1 or 0.	reload=T Count reload if site admin configured to so.
cdt=year;month;day;hr;min;sec (Added on: Dec-13-1998)	Show the countdown time to this target date.	The parameter cdt specifies the countdown target date. The valid values for this parameter is 6 integers separated by semicolon. The first integer specifies the year, for example: 2000. The month starts at 1 (January). The first day is 1. Note: in Unix systems, the year can not be less than 1970 as Unix epoch starts starts at 00:00:00 on January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The range of hr is 0 to 23. The range of min is 0 to 59 and the range of sec is 0 to 59. To count down to Year 2000, the parameter will be: cdt=2000;1;1;0;0;0. If you do not specify any Timezone with the parameter timezone, the countdown will be calculated from the web server time. For example if you like to show the countdown from GMT, specify timezone as: timezone=GMT+0000.	None
cdf=year;month;day;hr;min;sec (Added on: Jul-17-1999)	Show the countdown time from this date.	The parameter cdf specifies the countdown from date. The default is to calculate from the current local time or local time of a specific timezone if the parameter timezone is specified. The valid values for this parameter is 6 integers separated by semicolon. The first integer specifies the year, for example: 1999. The month starts at 1 (January). The first day is 1. Note: in Unix systems, the year can not be less than 1970 as Unix epoch starts starts at 00:00:00 on January 1, 1970, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The range of hr is 0 to 23. The range of min is 0 to 59 and the range of sec is 0 to 59.	The local web server time.
sdhms=B	Show the day, hr, min, sec in countdown or not.	This parameter affects how the countdown is displayed. The valid values for the Boolean parameter sdhms are Y, N, T, F, 1 or 0. By defualt, the value for this parameter is True, that means the countdown is shows as Day, Hour, Min and Sec. If you just want to show the countdown days, specify F as the value.	sdhms=T
sfd=B	Show from date (sfd) below the countdown.	The parameter sfd shows the from date below the countdown. The from date is the time when the program is executed. The time in date is always in 24 hr format. If you use the parameter timezone, the timezone offset will be shown at the end of time. It may be necessary to see this date to make sure that the Counter program actually ran and the browser is not loading the image from cache. Use cache=F&expires=0 to make sure that browser does not cache the image. The valid values for the Boolean parameter sfd are Y, N, T, F, 1 or 0.	sfd=F
display=X	Specifies what to display.	The valid values for X is: counter, clock, date, countdown, image or version. If the value is countdown and if the countdown time is not specified with parameter cdt, the countdown to year 2000 is assumed. See also: cdt. Note: If you specify display=image and if you specify a datafile with df parameter and if incr is true, then counter will be incremented in the datafile. This will help some people who do not like to show the counter, instead they can show an image. You can use incr=F from another page to monitor the counter.	display=counter
timezone=X	Display time/date of the specified timezone.	The parameter timezone= is only significant with display=clock, display=date or display=countdown Use this parameter if you want to display time or date of another timezone or calculate countdown in reference to a timezone to a target date. The timezone must be specified with a negative or positive four digit offset from GMT, for example: timezone=GMT-0500 or timezone=GMT+0000 or timezone=GMT+0530. The routine to display time of various timezones are written in a generic way. Therefore, the unix machines will not be aware of daylight saving time because of the way the routine is written. For example, if daylight saving time is on, to display time of NY, the timezone will be timezone=GMT-0500 instead of timezone=GMT-0400. If the clock displays your local time wrong, specify your timezone with that parameter in order to display the correct time.	None.
tformat=X	Time format in 12 or 24 hour.	This parameter can be used to display time in 12 or 24 hour format. The valid values for the parameter X is 12 or 24.	tformat=12
dformat=X	Specifies date format.	This parameter is only significant with display=date. The valid value for the string parameter X is any combination of MMDDYY (Month-Day-Year). For example, dformat=ddmmyy, dformat=YYMMDD. To show the full year in the display instead of two digit year specify YYYY instead of YY, for example dformat=MMDDYYYY. To show full year you can also use the parameter fy.	dformat=MMDDYY
fy=B	Show the full year (fy) in the date instead of only two digit year.	This boolean parameter indicates whether to show all the year digits instead of default two digits in the date. By the way the program will display all the year digits by default from Year 2000. The valid values for the boolean parameter fy are Y,N,T,F,1 or 0. See also: dformat.	fy=F
istrip=B	Use of image strip On/Off	The boolean value of istrip specifies whether to use image strip or not. If you specify istrip=F, the program will look for the individual digit image files in the digits/style directory. The valid values for the Boolean parameter istrip are Y, N, T, F, 1 or 0.	istrip=T
ft=X	Frame Thickness	You can wrap the counter in an ornamental frame of X pixels thick. Use 0 for no frame. Values over 5 make a nice 3-D effect.	ft=4
frgb=R;G;B or frgb=RRGGBB (in hex)	Frame Color	Specifies the color of the frame in RGB (red/green/blue) format. Each color component, R, G, and B is specified as a value between 0 and 255. If you use ft= without a frgb= param, the default color is used. If you specify a frgb= without a ft=, then the frame thickness defaults to 5. All the examples show ft=5. The color can be specified as hex string or a name. Do not use a # before the hex string as Netscape. For example, if you want to specify white in hex, use frgb=ffffff. You also can use a color name (e.g. frgb=blue) if the counter is configured to do so (look at the cfg file). Look at the color name mapping database for some hints about color name database.	frgb=100;139;216 or frgb=648bd8
tr=B	Transparency On/Off	You can specify if your counter image will have a transparent color with the Boolean B. So tr=Y means there will be a transparent color. It does not matter if the GIF files used for the digits are "transparent"; you must specify explicitly which color to make transparent. If you specify a trgb=, then you do not need to specify tr=Y. If you specify tr=Y and do not specify trgb=, then the default color black will be transparent. The valid values for B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0.	tr=F No Transparency
trgb=R;G;B or trgb=RRGGBB (in hex)	Transparency Color	Specifies the color to be made transparent in RGB (red/green/blue) format. Each color component, R, G, and B is specified as a value between 0 and 255. If you use tr= without a trgb= param, the default color is used. The color can be specified as hex string or a name. Do not use a # before the hex string as Netscape. For example, if you want to specify white in hex, use trgb=ffffff. You also can use a color name (e.g. trgb=blue) if the counter is configured to do so (look at the cfg file). Look at the color name mapping database for some hints about color name database. If you use trgb= then tr=Y is not needed.	trgb=0;0;0 or trgb=000000
md=X	Max Digits	Defines maximum number of digits to display. Any value between 5 and 80 inclusive are permitted. Padding with leading zeros is automatically done for you; longer counts are truncated to the given X.	md=6 Without padding
pad=B	Left padding with 0s	Turn padding on/off in conjunction with md= setting. It also affects padding hour in clock. Valid values for the Boolean parameter B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0.	pad=N Without specification of a md=value pad=Y With specification of a md=value
dd=A	Digit Directory	Denotes directory of a specific styles of digits. Four styles of digits are supplied. They are kept at the directories A,B,C and D respectively. Visit the digit mania page for other styles of digits.	dd=A My green LED digits
image=gif_file	Display this GIF file	You can display any GIF image specified with this parameter. The location of this file is determined by the dd= parameter. Note that no path in the GIF file is allowed. All attributes of the counter apply to the image. This parameter is used for compositing counter image with the GIF image. The default alignment is top-center and the default offset is 2 pixels from the top of the GIF image. If you want to composite clock, date or contdown, specify so with the display paramter.	None
comma=B	Display comma after every 3rd digit from right.	The boolean value of parameter comma specifies whether to display comma after every 3rd digit from right. If you use this parameter as true, the left padding with zeros will be turned off.	comma=F
srgb=R;G;B or srgb=RRGGBB (in hex) prgb=R;G;B or prgb=RRGGBB (in hex)	Change a color of the image to a target color on the fly.	Any one color of the image can be changed to a different color on the fly. srgb stands for source color, that is the color to change. prgb stands for pen color, that is the target color. The values for srgb and prgb can be colon separated color components (e.g, srgb=255;0;0), a hex value (e.g. srgb=ff0000) or a color name (e.g. srgb=red). The color name can be used if you configured the counter to do so (look at the cfg file).	srgb=00ff00 (0;255;0 green) prgb=00ffff (0;255;255 cyan) With chcolor=T
chcolor=B	Change a color of the image.	This parameter is usually used to change the default green color to cyan. That is if you specify chcolor=T, and you want to change green to cyan, then you do not need to specify srgb and prgb parameters. 1x1 GIF is displayed. The valid values for the Boolean parameter B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0	chcolor=F
st=X	Start Count	This parameter is used to set the initial value of the counter to some number X. This is only valid if you decided to allow automatic datafile creation. It is a bad practice to allow automatic datafile creation, however it makes site maintaining easier. The automatic datafile creation option is specified in configuration file and can be changed at run time. Note that this parameter has no effect if the datafile already exists. If you want to change the counter value in a existing datafile, hand edit the file. The minimum value for st is 1.	st=1 Count starts at 1
sh=B	Show digits	Used to turn display of digits on or off according to the Boolean B. When sh=T, counter will be displayed and incremented, this is the default behavior. If sh=F no digits will show, but the counter will still increment; instead of digits a transparent 1x1 GIF is displayed. The valid values for the Boolean parameter B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0	sh=Y
df=data_file	Datafile to store count	Specifies the name of the file for storing the count in. The file must be allocated to you as was mentioned in the "Authorizations" section above. You can use df=random to display a random number. One special use of the parameter is df=RANDOM. This returns a random number using the fractional portion of the host's time of day clock as a seed for the generator. Unlike all other WWWcounter parameters, the file name provided is case-sensitive, except for the value random. Or Random, or rANDOM, etc.	df=random if no datafile is specified
incr=B	Increment Count	Makes it possible to display the current count without incrementing the count. This can be used to examine the count for reporting or other purposes without adding to the count. Valid values for the Boolean parameter B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0.	incr=T Increment the counter
lit=X	Display literal	Makes it possible to display a given, predetermined string. The valid values for the string X are digits, a,p,: and -	None
negate=B	Negate the color	Makes it possible to negate the color of the counter digits. Note that the Frame is exempted from negating. Valid values for the Boolean parameter B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0.	negate=F Do not negate
degrees=X or angle=X	Rotate X degrees	Makes it possible to rotate the counter image X degrees. The possible values of X are 90, 180, 270 and 360. Note 360 is meaningless as the counter will come back to the original 0 degrees. Note: Microsoft MS Explorer interprets &degrees as the degree character (it's gotta be a bug in IE), so use angle to be safe.	degrees=270 With rotate=Y and without degrees=X rotate 270 degrees clockwise
rotate=B	Rotate On/Off	The Boolean value B turns on or off rotating. If you use degrees= setting, rotate is not needed. Valid values for the Boolean parameter B are Y, N, T, F, 1, or 0.	rotate=F Do not rotate
xy=x;y	composite the counter image to a base image at the location x,y	When a base image is specified with image parameter, the parameter xy can be used to composite the counter image on the base image at location x,y. x is positive towards right and y is positive downward. The co-ordinate of the upper left corner of the base image is 0,0). See also: align.	xy=1;1
align=X	composite the counter/clock/countdown image with a base image and align the counter image.	This option can be used to composite the counter on a base image (specified with image with known width and height. This way, you will be able specify the width and height of the counter image in the <img src= tag while calling the counter. The implication is, if the counter is the first thing in a large table, the browser will not have to wait to calculate the width and height of the counter image before loading the rest. The valid value for the parameter align is topleft, topcenter, topright, midleft, midright, midcenter, bottomleft, bottomcenter and bottomright. The parameter offset can be used to specify the offset in pixels from the edge of the base image. Note: xy parameter has higher precedence than align. Therefore, if both xy and align is specified xy will take the precedence. See also: xy.	align=bottomcenter
offset=N	Offset of the counter image in pixels from the edge of the base image while compositing the counter with an image.	The parameter offset is used with parameter align to specify the offset of the counter image in pixels from the edge of the base image while compositing the counter/clock image with an base image. If align=topleft, the the offset is counted from the top and left edge of the base image. If align=topcenter, the offset is counted from the top edge of the base image. If align=topright, the offset is counted from the top and right edge of the base image. If align=midleft, offset is counted from the left edge of the base image. If align=midcenter, offset is ignored. If align=midright, offset is counted from the right edge of the base image. If align=bottomleft, offset is counted from the left and bottom edge of the base image. If align=bottomcenter, offset is counted from bottom edge of the base image. If align=bottomright, offset is counted from the right and bottom edge of the base image. The valid value for the paramter N is a positive integer. See also: xy.	offset=2

How to use other styles of digits

There are several sites including Digit Mania which maintains a array of collection of GIF digits which can be used with the counter. The counter program can use these digits in 2 ways.

1. Use a single image strip for digits. This is the default behavior, that is the counter program looks for a image file called strip.gif in digits/style directory by default. Using an image strip is much more efficient than using individual digits, because
   • the size of an image strip is almost always less than the combined size of individual images.
     
   • Disk i/o is significantly reduced, because only one file needs to be opened instead of many.

2. use a individual digit image for each digit, for example, zero.gif, one.gif...nine.gif. These digit images reside in the digits/style directory. If you like to use the counter for clock, 3 additional digit images are required, e.g., colon.gif, am.gif and pm.gif. If you want to use comma in your counter digits, another image is required, e.g., comma.gif. If you want to use the counter to display date, one more image is required, e.g., dash.gif. If you collect digits from external source, do not forget to rename the images to zero.gif, one.gif, two.gif, ... nine.gif, colon.gif, am.gif, pm.gif, comma.gif and dash.gif

The section How to create an image strip describes how to create an image strip from individual digit images. If you like to use the individual digits instead, you must use the option istrip=F when you call the counter from web page, because by default istrip=T.

If you have individual digit images, you can create an image strip out of them. Image strip reduces disk i/o significantly, because the counter will need to read only one image instead of many and the size of the image in most cases will be less than the combined size of the individual images.

A program called mkstrip is supplied to create the image strip from individual digit images. Another program called extdgts is supplied to extract individual GIF images from the strip.gif (made with mkstrip). extdgts is there to help you out if you need to extract the digit images for some reason.

To compile the programs, go to the utils directory and at the shell prompt, type:

    make

Before using them, copy mkstrip and extdgts somewhere in your path, otherwise you'll get error "command not found."

Now, go to the directory where all the individual digit images are and type:

mkstrip zero.gif one.gif two.gif .... nine.gif colon.gif am.gif pm.gif > strip.gif

Note, the file names are not important but the order is very important. For example, the file names may be 0x.gif, 1x.gif etc.

Create a directory say F inside the digits directory and copy or move the file strip.gif to F. You can use this strip with dd=F.

The above strip can be used for counter and clock but not date. It also can NOT be used if you want to display comma. If you want to use date and comma, you must have the image for comma and dash. For example, the strip of digit style A is created with the command:

mkstrip zero.gif one.gif ... nine.gif colon.gif am.gif pm.gif comma.gif \
    dash.gif > strip.gif

Please note the order of the images used in arguments carefully. The program mkstrip puts the necessary information in the GIF comment extension about the strip. The counter program parses the comment extension to determine the width of the individual digits in the strip. Therefore, the strip can have digit segments of variable width.

For example, the comment of the image strip of digit style A is:

15:0:15:30:45:60:75:90:105:120:135:150:165:180:195:210:225

The leftmost integer 15 indicates there are 15 individual digits in the image and the next colon separated pairs are the location of left and right side of the segment of the individual images from the leftmost edge. If you look carefully you will see that the individual segment of the strip is 15 pixel wide. The height is determined by reading the image. If you use the program mkstrip, you do not need to know anything about the comment, it will be created correctly for you. It is mentioned here because it is possible you obtained a strip from somewhere and you want to add the comment to the image.

Compositing the counter image with a base image is an interesting feature of the counter. It allows you to composite the counter, clock or countdown image with a base image of your choice. You can position the counter image anywhere on the base image using the parameter xy or you can use align to align at top, middle and bottom of the base image. The valid keyword for align is topleft, topcenter, topright, midleft, midright, midcenter, bottomleft, bottomcenter and bottomright. The parameter offset can be used to specify the offset in pixels from the edge of the base image.

Here's example of Compositing the counter with a base image:

The HTML tag used to create the above image is as follows:

<img src="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=sample.dat&dd=A&image=yeehaw.gif&ft=0&offset=5&align=topcenter">

Note: while compositing the keyword tr and trgb for transparency makes the color of the counter image transparent not that of the base image. Also, when you're compositing, do NOT specify display=image.

Count will try to return an image in any event. That is, even if it fails for some reason, it will write the error messages in GIF format. The text error messages also will be written to the counter log file defined with LOG_FILE in the directory defined with LOG_DIR in the config.h file. The program Count-config asked about these if you remember.

If you see any of these images, please check the Counter log file you defined with LOG_DIR and LOG_FILE. If the program could not create the log file, it will write the error messages to stderr. In that case if you configured your httpd server to write the log to a file, the error messages will be written to this file.

Copyright 1995-2000 by Muhammad A Muquit. Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this program is hereby granted without fee, provided that this copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. If the source code of the program is modified or enhanced, the source code must be made public and it must be clearly mentioned in the documentation what was modified.

THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY. THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR Muhammad A. Muquit BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTUOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Note: This program is developed in my own time. My employer has nothing to do with it.