Pepper: Download Counter

I happily installed Mint this weekend, and couldn’t resist tinkering with it’s Pepper plugin structure. The result is Download Counter, and addition which tracks file downloads linked from your site. I must say that, for the most part, I am impressed with the planning that has gone into Mint. Shaun did a great job.

Update 4/19/2007: Updated for Mint 2.0.

There were only a few places that I wished I had an extra hook, but in general, the Plugin interface is top-notch. Creating the install and preferences procedures was especially simple.

The plugin works by specifying a comma separated list of file extensions you wish to track on your site e.g. zip,pdf,mp3,mpg,jpg Mint will then automagically reforward the files through a download script to register their delivery, so you don’t need to touch any code whatsoever. It’s that easy. Downloads begin tracking immediately.

Limitations

There are a few limitations to this method, just like any other:;/p>

  • Files must be linked to from an a tag. The href must point directly to the file.
  • Files must be linked to from a page where Mint is activated.
  • If other sites link directly to your files, they will not be recorded. But that’s just lame anyway.

Installation

Installation is simple. Just follow these steps:

  1. Just download the files, unzip, and copy the orderedlist directory into your /mint/pepper folder. To clarify, the final file destinations should be in /mint/pepper/orderedlist/downloads/.
  2. Login to your Mint installation and in the Preferences click “Install” under Pepper.
  3. Click the Download Counter Pepper “Install” button. Click “Okay.”
  4. Now click on the Download Counter preferences under Pepper in the preferences pane.
  5. In the box, type a comma separated list of file extensions to track, eg. zip,pdf,mp3
  6. Click “Done.”

Help and Support

If you encounter problems, have questions, or come up with any suggestions, please contact me and I’ll do what I can to help.

If you feel so inclined, donations of any amount are always appreciated, and help keep me motivated to develop more feature-rich plugins and software. Thanks for your support, and enjoy.

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Published September 07, 2005 by:

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So far there are 23 comments.

23 comments

  1. Looks great! Can’t wait to try it! So glad to see Peppers are already coming out! :)

    Jeff Croft Jeff Croft

    September 7th, 2005

  2. Nice one Steve!

    Dave Child Dave Child

    September 8th, 2005

  3. You use the standard path mint. Can you change it to the user specific one? Thanks!

    Joerg Joerg

    September 8th, 2005

  4. Just what I was looking for! Thanks a ton!

    Scott M. Scott M.

    September 8th, 2005

  5. Yep, the path needs to be fixed, as it stands this doesn’t work for me b/c my mint folder is not in the root of my site. Shaun fixed this in 1.0.3 for the default pepper.

    Scott M. Scott M.

    September 8th, 2005

  6. Joerg and Scott: I believe I have the path issue fixed. Download the files again and upload over the current ones. Let me know if that works for you.

    Steve Smith Steve Smith

    September 8th, 2005

  7. Darn should have refreshed the page before I went in and fixed it myself ;)

    Not crazy about the long URL in the window status bar. May add something to change it so it doesn’t have the pepper info…

    thanks again!

    Scott M. Scott M.

    September 8th, 2005

  8. It works very well thank you. today I had some problem with the new version only, blank screen! :-(

    Joerg Joerg

    September 8th, 2005

  9. I have downloaded and installed your Pepper. Looks good, works good – Thank you!!

    Oliver Wagner Oliver Wagner

    September 9th, 2005

  10. Dude. You’re amazing. You win the first non-inman pepper award! :) Thanks for this. I love that people are already playing with pepper and find it easy enough to actually do. Maybe I’d do my own if I wasn’t such a noob. :)

    Lisa McMillan Lisa McMillan

    September 9th, 2005

  11. Great idea. :)

    Elliot Swan Elliot Swan

    September 10th, 2005

  12. It doesn’t seem to respect the setting for number of items to show :(

    Michael Heilemann Michael Heilemann

    September 12th, 2005

  13. Is there a way to filter the statistics so I can see how many people downloaded within the last 24 hours?

    Nate Silva Nate Silva

    September 13th, 2005

  14. I’m having an issue with the Download Counter…

    http://haveamint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=253

    Any thoughts?

    Colby Makowsky Colby Makowsky

    September 15th, 2005

  15. I’d use that, but I don’t have any zips on my site for people to download.

    Jason Jason

    September 16th, 2005

  16. Windows support would be nice. Hopefully it will come soon :)

    David David

    September 19th, 2005

  17. It doesn’t adhere to the number of entries allowed for a list, like the other windows in Mint :(

    Michael Heilemann Michael Heilemann

    October 19th, 2005