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Web Counter FAQ List

Questions List

1. How do I get a web counter on sonic.net?
2. How do I put my counter on my page?
3. Why do I just see a broken image?
4. Why does my counter display all 8's?
5. How do I change my counter options?
6. How do I get help with my web page counter?
7. Can I have an invisible counter?
8. Can I have a web counter on my non-sonic site?
9. Can I have more than one web counter?
10. What do I do if I don't want my web counter anymore?
11. Why do I only see text where my web counter should be?
12. Why does my counter display "Unable to read strip image" instead of numbers?

Answers List

1. How do I get a web counter on sonic.net?

   Sonic members can use our free Webcounter on their web pages. The following resources can help you set one up:

   • Web Counter Form
     Answer a few questions and we'll write the webcounter code for you
   • Step-By-Step
     Full instructions for hand-crafting your webcounter code.
   • Digit Styles
     A listing of available styles for your webcounter's appearance.

2. How do I put my counter on my page?

   1. If you fill out the Webcounter Form then after you hit the "Submit" button, you will be given a line of code. You need to copy that text exactly into your web page. Double check for accuracy, as one wrong character could make your counter not show up.
   2. If you make your own counter using the Step-by-Step page, then you will have to input your code onto your web page. If you aren't sure it is correct, please post your question to the sonic.help.www newsgroup.

3. Why do I just see a broken image??

   There could be several reasons for this, and most often it is the actual code in the   <IMG   tag.

   1. If you have selected the comma feature and your digit choice doesn't come with a comma, your counter will break when you move from 3 digits to 4.

      Please make sure your digit choice comes with a comma if you have the comma feature turned on, comma=T. Otherwise you should turn the comma feature off by either taking the comma=T code out, or changing it to comma=F.

   2. Check to make sure your counter code has the general format as shown below.

      <img src="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?dd=A|df=name.file.dat">

      <	Necessary. Make sure it doesn't look like   &lt;   *
      img src="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?	Necessary for every counter
      dd=A	Somewhat necessary. Used to show digit style choice.
      df=name.file.dat"	Necessary. name is your login name, file is the first part of your page name, like index.
      >	Necessary. Make sure it doesn't look like   &gt;   *

      * Note: Some HTML editors, like Adobe PageMill, change the   <   >   into   <   > which will cause your counter to show up as a broken image or a question mark image.

4. Why does my counter only display all 8's?

   The counter is running in strict mode. When the counter runs in strict mode, if the browser does not return the environment variable HTTP_REFERER, the counter will display the image 888888 instead of serving the counter.

   The env variable HTTP_REFERER should contain the web page running the counter. Some browsers does not return this variable in <img GET method. This feature helps prevent the counter from being accessed remotely to mess up the datafile from a browser.

   In addition, if you are using a proxy server, you will have problems accessing the current count.

5. How do I change my counter options?

   You need to decide which options you want to change, then look at the Step-by-Step page to determine what the tag is that you have to change.

   If you need help or have questions about this, please post your questions to the sonic.help.www newsgroup.

6. How do I get help with my web page counter?

   If the answers to your questions aren't at http://www.sonic.net/support/web_resources/webcounter/, please post your questions to the sonic.help.www newsgroup.

7. Can I have an invisible counter?

   Yes. To do this, you will use the counter code on two pages.

   1. The page you want it to count
   2. The page you want to monitor the count from.

   To implement this:

   1. The counted page code must have   sh=N   in it, so the counter will not be displayed on that page.
   2. The page that you will look at to see the count, must have   incr=F   so when you go to that page to view the count, you do not increment it.

   For more information, please see the Step-by-Step instructions.

   Please post any questions to sonic.help.www so that everyone may benefit from these questions and answers.

8. Can I have a web counter on my non-sonic site?

   Not using the Sonic.net webcounter. The web counter is set up for use by Sonic Members only. No exceptions.

9. Can I have more than one web counter?

   Yes. Each page you want a counter on should have it's own counter. To help keep them straight, name them differently. For example: jdoe.index and jdoe.company.

10. What do I do if I don't want my web counter anymore?

    Take the counter code off your page, then send email to support@sonic.net and include the name of the counter you don't want.

11. Why do I only see text where my web counter should be?

    You are probably using an HTML editor to put your counter code in. Often HTML editors will replace the < and > with &lt; and &gt; so your counter code is not parsed by the web browser.

    You need to change the &lt; and &gt; with < and > in your HTML file and save it again. If your HTML editor won't allow you to do this, then you will need to use a text editor like Notepad or Simpletext.

    In addition, sometimes the HTML editor will attempt to replace the quotes  "  with &quot; at the beginning and end of the src attribute.

12. Why does my counter display "Unable to read strip image" instead of numbers?

    If you change the digit style to one that isn't valid or doesn't exist, then you will see this message. Often people just change the dd=W to a lowercase version such as dd=w which doesn't exist currently.

    Since the digit styles are kept in directories on the web server, the digit style name (A, B, C...) is case sensitive, just like other Linux file names.

    To fix this, double check your code against the existing digit styles and make sure your code syntax is correct. You can double check the rest of your code against the How-To page.