CoolCounter - Frequently Asked Questions

1. I downloaded the CoolCounter Control, however, when I try to run the Visual Basic demo I get a message box that says that the "VB40032.DLL" file is missing. What am I missing here ?

The CoolCounter Control does not depend on the Visual Basic run-time DLL's. Some of the examples provided, however, require the presence of the Visual Basic 4 run-time (VB40032.DLL) and the Microsoft Common Dialog OCX (COMDLG32.OCX).

You can now download these support files and place them in your system or \system32 directory (all required files are in one zip file called VBSupport.zip).

DOWNLOAD Visual Basic 4 Support Files

The COMDLG32.OCX needs to be registered using the following command:

REGSVR32 COMDLG32.OCX

 

2. How do I get CoolCounter to receive live updates from my web site ?

First check the CCounter.HLP file for a description of how to set up the CoolCounter on the Web.

There are four web related properties that are exposed by the CoolCounter. All web related properties start with the prefix "Web...". They determine the location of the CGI script required for the operation of the counter. A sample PERL script called counter.cgi is also shipped with the software. If you know a little about CGI you should not have a problem setting it up. If you don't take a look at question number 3 below or e-mail our support at support@4developers.com.

3. How do I setup the CGI script required for the CoolCounter ?

In order for the CoolCounter Control to receive live Internet updates it needs to query a remote CGI script. A sample PERL script called counter.cgi is shipped with the CoolCounter software. You need to place this script file in one of the directories of your web server. On UNIX based servers the file should have the following permissions 755. After you copy the script file to the server you need to set the web properties of the CoolCounter to point to that script. See question 4 on how to do just that.

4. How to add the CoolCounter Control to a web page ?

In order to add the CoolCounter control to a web page you need an HTML editor that supports ActiveX Controls. You can use Microsoft FrontPage or ControlPad for that. After adding the Control to the page set it's web properties to point to your web server and to the specific CGI script that returns the counter value. You will also need to add the CODEBASE keyword to the HTML code of your page. The CODEBASE keyword points to the CAB file that contains the CoolCounter Control. If you don't know how to build a cab file e-mail to support@4developers.com and we will send you one.

The HTML code will look like this:

<object id="Counter1" name="Counter1"
classid="CLSID:901EA1E3-9FA2-11D1-8950-F408B982101C"
codebase="ccounter.cab" align="baseline" border="0"
width="223" height="49">
<param name="_Version" value="65537">
<param name="_ExtentX" value="5891">
<param name="_ExtentY" value="1305">
<param name="_StockProps" value="41">
<param name="BackColor" value="0">
</object>

You also need to set the WebEnable property to TRUE when the user enters the page and back to FALSE when he leaves. This can easily be done using the events supplied be Internet Explorer.

e.g:

<script language="VBScript">

<!--

Sub window_onLoad()

Counter1.WebEnable = True

end sub

Sub window_onUnload()

Counter1.WebEnable = False

end sub

-->

</script>

 

5. Which browsers currently support ActiveX Controls ?

Sadly only Internet Explorer version 3.02 and above.