This post provides a Vista Sidebar gadget to report on sitemeter information for a web site being monitored. In a previous post I’ve provided a command-line PowerShell method to retrieve the same information, but I thought I’d try this GUI thing people keep talking about.
The gadget:
- Has a transparent PNG background image and writes the text in white on two lines, with a gadget size of 128x64
- Uses the MSXML DOM to issue a HTTP GET and for the sitemeter URL, using an asynchronous callback
- Parses the HTTP response, looking for the first index of the word ‘Today’ and extracts the number
- Updates the second field in the gadget with the current date/time to tell when the last successful get occurred
- Uses the SetTimeout method to sleep for an hour before calling the getData() function again
- Have the URL and timeouts stored in a settings file to save having to modify the JS when scraping a different URL or changing the timeout.
- Have a flyout or something which shows the other summary information on the sitemeter page
- Use a separate CSS and init() function rather than the in-line code from the example
- Download the gadget samples from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b1e14e4f-3108-4c57-8b78-1157ca40dcc2
- Copy SDK_HelloWorld.gadget to *.zip
- Unzip the contents of the gadget zip file to a working directory and remove the read-only attribute from the files
- Create a transparent PNG background 64x64 in size (or use the one provided in this post), and overwrite Background.png
- Update images\aerologo.PNG with the png from this post
- Update HelloWorld.html with the contents below:
- Update the height and width to 128x64
- Add the script tag:
- Update the in-place init() funciton to call getData()
- Create SiteMeter.js with the contents below - Create a new directory and copy all of the gadget files to "%Systemdrive%\users\%username%\appdata\local\microsoft\Windows Sidebar\gadgets\SiteMeterCounter.gadget"
- Update the URL in SiteMeter.js with the page to scrape
- Add the gadget
HelloWorld.html
<!--
*************************************************************************
*
* Name: SiteMeter.html
*
* Description:
* Simple SiteMeter counter
* Displays the current count of today's visitors from the provided SiteMeter URL
*
*
* Modified from the 'Hello World' Microsoft example
************************************************************************
-->
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>SiteMeter Count</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
width: 128px;
height: 64px;
font-family: calibri;
color: white;
}
#gadgetContent
{
width: 128px;
top: 3px;
text-align: center;
overflow: hidden;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 14px;
}
#lastUpdate
{
width: 128px;
top: 20px;
text-align: center;
overflow: hidden;
font-size: 9px;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="SiteMeter.js"></script>
<script type="text/jscript" language="jscript">
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
// Initialize the gadget.
// --------------------------------------------------------------------
function init()
{
var oBackground = document.getElementById("imgBackground");
oBackground.src = "url(images/background.png)";
getData();
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="init()">
<g:background id="imgBackground">
<span id="gadgetContent">-</span>
<span id="lastUpdate">-</span>
</g:background>
</body>
</html>
SiteMeter.js
var globalURL = "http://www.sitemeter.com/default.asp?a=stats&s=s451qaz2wsx"; // URL for lookup
var globalTimeoutId;
var globalError;
var XMLHttp;
function getData()
{
try
{ XMLHttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
}
catch (e)
{ XMLHttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
// Timeout, if call not come back in 30 seconds, abort with the default error message.
globalTimeoutId = setTimeout(function() {
XMLHttp.abort();
document.getElementById("gadgetContent").innerHTML = "Timeout";
}, 30000);
// Asynchronous get
XMLHttp.open("GET", globalURL, true);
XMLHttp.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
XMLHttp.setRequestHeader("Connection", "close");
// Callback for when the page has loaded
XMLHttp.onreadystatechange = parseData
// Send the request
XMLHttp.send(null);
}
function parseData()
{
var Results;
var td;
gadgetContent.innerHTML = XMLHttp.status;
if (XMLHttp.readyState == 4 && XMLHttp.status == 200)
{
var date = new Date();
lastUpdate.innerHTML = date.getDate() + "/" + (date.getMonth() +1) + "/" + date.getYear() + " " + date.getHours() + ":" + date.getMinutes() + ":" + date.getSeconds();
globalError = 0;
Results = XMLHttp.responsetext;
if (Results.indexOf("Today") >= 0)
{
td = Results.substring(Results.indexOf("Today")+20, Results.indexOf("Today")+80);
td = td.substring(td.indexOf("<font"), td.length);
td = td.substring(0, td.indexOf("</font>")+7);
gadgetContent.innerHTML = td;
}
else
{
globalError = 1;
document.getElementById("gadgetContent").innerHTML = "Error";
}
// Set a callback for the getData function in one hour
clearTimeout(globalTimeoutId);
globalTimeoutId = setTimeout(getData, 3600000);
}
}
Wayne's World of IT (WWoIT), Copyright 2009 Wayne Martin.
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