+----------------------------------+
| GTCounter 1.1 by Wladimir Palant |
| http://www.gtchat.de/            |
+----------------------------------+

This package contains the following files:

counter.pl       - the program
counter_xxx.html - templates
readme.txt       - english instructions (this file)
liesmich.txt     - german instructions
Data/.htaccess   - protection of the data
Data/count.txt   - visitor's count
Data/log.txt     - last seen IP addresses


This program shows the overall count of visitors of the site
as well as the count of users online at the moment. Different
templates can be used for output.


Installation:
=============
Adjust the templates to your site, {ONLINE} will be replaced by the
users online count and {COUNT} by the overall visitors count.
Three templates are included (you can create more):

 - counter.html: To be used in a frameset
 - counter_ssi.html: To be used with SSI
 - counter_inv.html: "invisible" counter, without output

You can set up IP addresses to be ignored with the parameter @ignore
in counter.pl. Maybe you should add your own IP to this list.

If the operating system of your server is Windows 95/98/ME, you should
deactivate flock() with the corresponding parameter in counter.pl
as this function is not implemented.

Copy all the files into your cgi-bin directory. Set with your FTP
client the execution permissions for counter.pl (CHMOD 755) and
write permissions for count.txt and log.txt (CHMOD 666).

If you want to have the data or the templates in any other directory,
change the parameters $templ_dir and $data_dir in counter.pl.


Adding the counter to your page:
================================
When calling counter.pl without parameters, the template counter.html
is used. Otherwise the parameter determines the template name, for
example for counter.pl?param the template counter_param.html is used.
This gives you the possibility to use different templates when using
the counter on more than one page.

- Adding the counter to a frameset:
  Add a frame for the counter to your frameset, for example:

    <frame name=counter src="/cgi-bin/counter.pl" scrolling=no>

  Alternatively you can use <iframe> or <layer>. When calling without
  parametes as in the example, the template counter.html is used, that
  places the counter output into the middle of the frame (at least
  the predefined template does).

- Adding to an .shtml page via SSI:
  When using SSI the script doesn't need to output the HTML head,
  therefore the template counter_ssi.html should be used. Add to
  an HTML page with file extension .shtml something like this:

        <!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/counter.pl?ssi"-->

  If you want to use SSI by default, rename counter_ssi.html to
  counter.html, then counter.pl without parameter ssi will be enough.

- Calling counter.pl from another script:
  You can call the counter from any other script to make it save the
  user's IP even if the counter is not shown. This makes the count
  of the users who are online more realistic. Add the following line
  at the beginning of the script:

        $no_output=1; require "counter.pl";

  The counter notices the request from this IP address then without
  making any output.


How does the counter script determine, who is online?
========================================
The counter saves the IP addresses of the last requests in the file
log.txt. The parameter $keep_in_log_time in counter.pl is the time
for the IP address to be kept after the last request. On every call
the counter checks if the IP adress is already known and increases
the count only if this is not the case.

However not all IP addresses from log.txt are considered to be users
who are online. The parameter $keep_online_time is the time for an
inactive user to be still shown as online. It's useful to make this
time shorter than $keep_in_log_time. Default value is 15 minutes, this
means that all users who requested a page in the last 15 minutes are
considered to be still online.