HitCounter

Ruby version of that old 90s chestnut, <BLINK>the web-site hit counter</BLINK>.

Installation

Install the gem and supporting files.

Gemfile

gem 'hit_counter'

Run:

bundle
rake hit_counter:install

Add a controller action to your app.

application_controller.rb

def hit_counter
  return if params[:url].blank?

  # find or create a hit counter for this URL
  hc = HitCounter.get params[:url]

  # increase the tally by one
  hc.increment

  # get the image as a blob and stream it to the browser
  send_data hc.image(params[:style]).to_blob, :disposition => 'inline', :filename => "#{hc.hits}.png", :type => :png
end

routes.rb

get 'hit-counter' => 'application#hit_counter' # technically should be POST/PUT, but GET makes integration simpler

Add the hit-counter image tag to your site’s HTML:

<img alt="Hit Counter" border="0" src="/hit-counter?url=http://cnn.com&style=1" />

Customizing the Hit-Counter Image

Use an Existing Style

You can use one of the three included styles by specifying a different style param in the HTML:

<img alt="Hit Counter" border="0" src="/hit-counter?url=cnn.com&style=1" />

The included styles are:

odometer scout Celtic

Create Your Own Style

To add your own style, create a GIF for each of the digits, 0.gif through 9.gif. Save the images in a folder named after your new style in public/images/digits.
In your controller, declare a new STYLES constant and add the folder name to it:
```
HitCounter::STYLES = ['odometer', 'scout', 'celtic', '(folder name)']
```
In your HTML, specify the new style with a style param equal to its index in the array plus one (unlike arrays, the style param’s index is one-based):
```
<img alt="Hit Counter" border="0" src="/hit-counter?url=cnn.com&style=4" />
```

Contributing to hit_counter