* All files remain intact (see it fail if you change the sprite file greatly!)
* No unreasonable charge is made
* It is for the use of ArgoNet users only - Argo may not like external requests
for its web counter!
Disclaimer:
~~~~~~~~~~~
* If it doesn't work, tough.
* The colours are probably not accurate, so please don't complain if you match
your HTML to my program's display, only to find they don't match in reality.
* NOT supported by ArgoNet - any bugs, suggestions etc. contact me.
Quick User Guide:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click on OK, move the caret to where you want it in your text editor, click on OK again.
You might want to click on the Big/Small buttons and the colour buttons to change the options, and the counter name can be changed in the white box at the top of the window.
Starting up:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you first load the program, you should see a window that looks a little something like this:
The 'Counter name' is the "code name" of the counter - each name must be unique for each counter, because if you use the same name as someone else then their web counter will go up whenever someone visits your page, and likewise a visit to the other web page will increase your counter.
It's suggested you use your email address for this - after all, no-one else has the same address or they'd be getting your mail! - and so the program will ask Voyager what the main email address is for your account (if that's possible), and add the '1' to the end of it (in case you want more than one counter, you can simply change this to a 2, 3 etc.). You can use whatever 'Counter name' you want though.
Note that if you hit the RETURN key after typing in the 'counter name' box, it's the same as clicking the "OK" box.
Because the web counter supports two sizes, large and small, the 'Counter size' section has two bottons which will switch between the two. You can see the test version change at the bottom of the window as you do this.
The three colour boxes - 'Numeral colour', 'Background colour' and 'Border colour' - not only show what colour is currently selected for that part of the counter, but can be clicked on to bring up a colour palette of all 24 possible colours. You can select a colour from this palette, and the test counter at the bottom of the main window will change accordingly to show how this will affect your counter. There's more about the palette window later.
At the bottom of the window is a test area - an example counter will change colour and size according to your choices in the top half of the window (don't worry about the fact that they display different numbers!) - and the 'Cancel' and 'OK' buttons. Clicking on 'Cancel' will quit the program, and 'OK' will begin the process of entering your web counter (as will pressing RETURN if the window has input focus).
The Next Step:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once you've OK'ed the settings for your counter, the main window will be removed and another window will appear:
Basically, this program works by pushing the text that makes up the web counter into the keyboard buffer. The upshot of this is that any program that accepts keyboard input - for instance, your text editor - thinks that you're typing the code in yourself very quickly. However, if you don't click on the text editor just before the program tries to send this code out, there may be no-where for it to go and it will appear that nothing has happened.
So, before hitting 'OK' make sure your text editor has what is known as "input focus" - that is, the bar at the very top of the text editor window will be a light yellow colour, and if you type something yourself it will appear in the text editor window.
If you hit 'Cancel' you'll be taken straight back to the main window.
Once you've clicked OK and the code has been typed out, the main window will come back up ready for you to change the counter or create a new one. Just close teh window or click on "Cancel" to quit the program.
The Palette Window:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The palette window basically consists of 24 colours (all named), a long bar at the bottom which shows the currently-selected colour, and the 'Cancel' and 'Use' buttons.
Clicking on one of the colours will change the colour of the long bar at the bottom of the screen - just so you can get a better idea of what it looks like - but will NOT yet set the colour of the counter. You can try as many colours as you want, but a colour will not be applied to the counter until you click on the 'Use' button. Once the 'Use' button has been pressed the colour will be properly selected, and you will be able to see on the main window how your new colour will look when applied to the counter. The 'Cancel' button takes you straight back to the main window without making any changes.
Versions:
~~~~~~~~~
1.00: July 1997
First released version, still pretty much a beta release as I'm the only
one to have tested it!
1.01: August 1997
Changed code so windows will re-open where the user moves them, not
