Documentation: Chapter 2
Installation for WebTen on the Macintosh
FlashStats runs on any Macintosh, and is accelerated for Power Macintosh. In order to install FlashStats on a Macintosh for use with WebTen, just follow these instructions.
Step 1: Install the Files
Download the original distribution .hqx file from the Maximized Software download site. After is has finished downloading, it should automatically decompress and unstuff; if it does not, then manually unstuff the contents.
After unstuffing, you will have the following items in a folder called "FlashStats 1.5 Folder":
- A folder titled "FlashStats"
- A document named FlashStats.ini
- A program named FlashStats.acgi
- A document named FlashStats Read Me
- A document named FlashStats License
Be sure to read the Read Me file for any last-minute information.
Now you need to install certain files into your WebTen folder. (WebTen should already be installed.) Open the folder titled "FlashStats 1.5 Folder," select the FlashStats.acgi program, FlashStats folder, and FlashStats.ini file, and move them into your WebTen folder. (Do not move the folder containing these items, just the items themselves.) You should now have the following items in your WebTen folder:
- A program named FlashStats.acgi
- A document named FlashStats.ini
- A folder titled "FlashStats" which contains the following files:
- default.html
- advanced.html
- networks.txt
- FlashStats License
- fs15-reg.gif
- blue2x5.gif
- red2x5.gif
You have successfully installed the FlashStats files. The next step will help you to edit the FlashStats.ini file to properly configure FlashStats for your system.
Step 2: Configure a User Account
FlashStats uses the concept of a "user account" to control who has the abililty to run reports. These user accounts are private to FlashStats, and do not relate to any other type of user account that your web server or operating system may maintain, such as user name or account name (under Mac, Windows NT, or UNIX). You edit the FlashStats.ini to create accounts for each user that you would like to be able to run FlashStats.
Of course, several end users can share the same FlashStats user account. And if you'd like to do away with user accounts entirely, you can just set up one account named something simple like "public" and no password and then always use that account. We'll get to those details later. For now, let's go ahead and create a basic user account so that you can begin using FlashStats.
FlashStats comes with two standard accounts named "WebSTAR" and "QuidProQuo" already defined. We're going to create a new user account named "WebTen".
Add the following line to the end of the FlashStats.ini file:
user=WebTen;password=;url=http://www.mydomain.com/;title=FlashStats Report for WebTen;logs=:Archived Logs:log*;accesslog=:WebTen.log
Please note that all parameters for this user account must be placed entirely on one line, with each key=value separated by a semicolon; do not press Return to wrap the text to a new line. If the text breaks onto a new line, then FlashStats will not see any text on lines other than the first line, and therefore the user account will not be configured properly. Of course, if your text editor wraps lines "logically" so that they fit on the screen, without actually breaking the lines by inserting a carriage return, then that's okay.
Notice that parameters on the user account line are separated by a semicolon. Find the password= parameter for the "WebTen" user account. The value of the password is preset to no string so that this user account does not require a password. This is fine for our purposes right now, so you don't need to change that parameter.
Now look at the third parameter: url=. Change the value after the equal sign to be the base URL for the web site that you'll be generating statistics for. For example, if your web site's home page is http://www.mydomain.com, then use that as the value of the url= parameter. Or, if your home page is http://www.myisp.com/mycompany, then use that. Here are some examples of what the url= parameter might look like:
url=http://www.mydomain.com
url=http://www.myisp.com/mycompany
url=http://www.myschool.edu/~username
Note that you don't need to end the value with a slash, and that you don't need to specify the filename of your home page, just its URL base location.
Next, give your report a title. This simple title will print at the top of the summary report generated by FlashStats. Keep the parameter relatively short, something like: title=My Domain Analysis.
Next, you need to specify the location of the log files generated by your WebTen server. If you run WebTen in its default configuration, all hits go into a file named WebTen.log in the WebTen folder. Make sure that the user account line includes a parameter that reads like accesslog=:WebTen.log.
That's it! You should now have a user account line for an account named "WebTen" that looks something like this:
user=WebTen;password=;url=http://www.mydomain.com;title=My Domain Analysis;accesslog=:WebTen.log;logs=:Archived Logs:log*
Save and close the configuration file.
Now you're ready to run your first FlashStats report.
Step 3: Run A Report
Fire up your web browser, and connect to the machine on which you installed FlashStats. Request this document (changing the host name as appropriate):
http://www.mydomain.com/FlashStats/
You will see the FlashStats report form. Change the User field to read WebTen (which is the name of the user account that we created in Step 2 above).
Also, be sure to change the Page to Analyze field from / to http://. This is necessary because WebTen includes that part of the request when it logs the hits, so it's necessary to tell FlashStats what substring to match.
Later you may want to change some of the other fields on this form, but for now just accept the other defaults. Hit the Generate Report button, then wait for FlashStats to generate the report.
That's it! You've successfully run your first FlashStats report. If you'd like to customize your FlashStats installation, you should continue on to Chapter 3.
If you encountered any problems, you may want to jump to the support area of our web site.
Memory Usage
By default, FlashStats is configured to allocate 350 KB of memory. You should not need to increase this amount.
Version 1.5 -- Last update: 2/8/01
