Current Version

"1.1.0"

Installation

You should install this product as usual. Unpack the archive with all contained directory information into your Zope products directory /lib/python/Products or /Products. Restart Zope.

Create an instance in the root of your zope server through the zmi. It will automatically get the id "mxm_counter".

Usage

On any page where you want a hit counter you should insert a few lines of code.

The most simple ZPT version is:

        <span tal:replace="python:here.mxm_counter.count(here)"/>

A more involved, but more graphically pleasing version could be:

        Hits:
        <span style="font-family: courier; 
                     border: 1px solid black; 
                     background-color: lightgray;
                     padding: 0px 4px;"
              tal:define="count python:here.mxm_counter.count(here)"
              tal:content="python:'%06i' % count">
        0000001
        </span>

In dtml it can look like:

        <dtml-var "mxm_counter.count(this())">

In rare situations you might want to show the count while not increasing it. Then you can write:

        <span tal:replace="python:here.mxm_counter.get_count(here)"/>

You should notice that you can insert the counter code in something like a footer script, and the counter will work automatically on all files that uses the footer.

Properties

title

Well, what can I say ....

ips_to_ignore

List of ip adresses to ignore. Meaning that they don't increase the counter when they visit a page.

Examples of valid patterns:

            127.0.0.1
            192.168.0.42
            192.168.0
            192

count_once

When this is checked it only counts a browser once for each browser session. It stores a cookie in the browser that expires when the browser is restarted. There is not really any right way to do this. This was just the way I choosed to do it.

save_interval

The counter saves the hits in memory when the number of uncomitted hits reaches the save_interval. Any hits that are not saved when zope is closed down, are lost. With the default setting of 100, it means that it saves the hits to disk once every 100 hits.

It also means that you can loose up to 100 registered hits when zope is shut down.

On the positive side it is a fast approach that doesn't grow the zodb.

The counters are stored in the var directory in a file called: counters.dict

If not loosing hits is very important to you, you can set the value to 1. But then you will write the counter.dict for every page count.

This should be fine for small sites with few hits.

The interval is overall for the site. Not pr. page. You don't need 100 hits on one page before it saves the counters, but 100 hits on any of the counted pages combined.

counter management/overview page

The view tab in the zmi will show a very simple page, with paths and counts. Sorted by number of hits in reverse order. You can use this if you don't want visible counters on the pages.

You can avoid showing the count on a page by using this code:

        <span tal:define="count python:here.mxm_counter.count(here)"/>

It will still increase the page count, but it will not be visible. You can then see it in the view tab of mxm_counter.

You can also set the count of a page to any value. If you set the count to 0, the page is deleted from the counter, until someone visits it again.

Tips: When you press "Set" the counts are saved to disk. So if you want to shut down your site, and don't want to risk loosing any counts, you can select a page and give it that same count as it allready has.

Methods

You can call the following methods on the tool:

            def count(self, obj, REQUEST=None):
                """
                Increases The count For The Object. It will loose count 
                if object is moved.
                Returns the new count for that page.
                """

            def get_count(self, obj, REQUEST=None):
                "returns the count without incrementing"

            def total_hits(self):
                "Returns the total number of hits on all counted pages"

Important notice

There can be only one!

Notice that only one instance if this product can be installed on a zope server!!!! Trying to install more than one instance will silently fail.

If you install the instance in a subfolder, you cannot later install it in the root folder. So install it there to begin with.

If you accidently install it in a subfolder, and has counts you don't want to loose, you can do it by first renaming the counters.dict in the var directory. Deleting the mxm_counter instance, rename the counters.dict back to the original name, and create a new mxmCounter instance in the root folder. It will then use the old counters.dict.

Probably this product should be made placeless. Well that is for another version.

There might be issues with (multiple) ZEO clients

I don't know. I have not tested it in this setup yet. Please try it and give me feedback.

License: GPL

Full license text here

download

You can get it here: mxmCounter.1.1.0.tar.gz