What is Clonespy?
CloneSpy is a desktop widget that allows you to monitor your website's pimp hand without even having to open a browser.
How does it do this? Well, using the ubernifty Konfabulator framework, CloneSpy gathers data from your BBClone installation and displays a tally of hits for the day, the past week, the past month, and the past year, as well as an overall tally of unique visitors to your site. It also provides a list of recent referrers–the places whence your hits are coming.
What Do I Need to Make it Work?
Yes, to make this widget hum, you need a few things.
- A Computer. Either a Mac or a PC will work nicely.
- Konfabulator. Seriously, everyone should have this already, it's free.
- The BBclone Stats Package. This widget was designed to work with version 0.4.8a, but will probably work for previous releases as well. Again, it's free.
- The Clonestats gateway file (source). Upload this file to the same directory as the BBclone show_global.php file. Modify the few variables at the top of the script, and save it as clonestats.php. This file is included with the widget in the .zip archive available for download below. If you have come from the Konfabulator Gallery and you already have the widget, you can download just the gateway file.
- Check if you have the gateway correctly established. To do this, enter the URL that points to clonestats.php in the browser of your choice. If all is well, you should see an XML document that looks like this.
How Do I Use It?
Fairly simple, really. After you have correctly set up the Clonestats gateway, open the widget. When prompted, enter the URL that points to clonestats.php in the Widget Preferences pane.
Sit back and relax, and watch the hits roll in.
Additionally, if you set the BBClone URL to the index page of your BBclone installation, clicking on the CloneSpy logo in the top left corner of the widget will take you to your BBClone index page. If you don't wish to use this feature, you can leave this field blank.
Links, News, Etc.
Here's a list of links, updates, known issues, and other stuff.
- CloneSpy's official entry in the Konfabulator Widget Gallery.
- CloneSpy scored a spot on the BBclone links page. Lots of other cool stuff there; check it out.
Acknowledgements
The impetus for this widget came from my admiration of Keegan Jones' Shortstat Widget, as well as the version for Konfabulator created by the fine folks at mad4milk.net.
I love BBClone; I've used it for a few years now–and as for Konfabulator, well, building a widget is basically the same kind of fun I had playing with Legos as a kid.
In the interest of full disclosure: some of the functions employed in the gateway file are modifications of Shaun Inman's string handling methods from ShortStat, and there are a few lines of code that are notionally identical to the code in Keegan's Shortstat Widget gateway file. One can only hope they appreciate as I do the beauty and transferability of PHP.
Here's CloneSpy in repose, filling you with pride and reminding you how well your website doubles for real human interaction and positive reinforcement.
Clicking the triangle expands a list of the five most recent referrers.
These referrer names are also direct links to the referring URL. Mouseover the link and a tooltip shows the time of the visit, as well as the full URL.
After you're done musing at your ever-widening popularity, you can click on the same triangle to hide the referrers list.
Note: If you got here from the Widget Gallery and have already grabbed CloneSpy, all you need is the gateway file. If you want the whole shebang, the first option is for you.
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