# \[Pro\] Simple tracking of file downloads

**URL:** <https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261>\
**Category:** Off Topic\
**Created:** [February 2, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261 "2013-02-02T03:19:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/a587f6/32.png) [@Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ernie_Simpson)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 3:19am UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/1 "2013-02-02T03:19:05Z")

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I’m just looking for a simple way to track file downloads, then reflect that back in the same page as the download link… like “downloaded 137 times”. ???

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**Author:** ![waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/user_avatar/discourse.softpress.com/waltd/32/2720_2.png) [@waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/waltd)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/2 "2013-02-02T03:41:43Z")

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I don’t know about simple. You’re going to need a database of one sort or another – even just a text file will do the trick – but you have to store the clicks somewhere. How badly do you want this? How many different files are you tracking?

Walter

On Feb 1, 2013, at 10:19 PM, The Big Erns wrote:

> I’m just looking for a simple way to track file downloads, then reflect that back in the same page as the download link… like “downloaded 137 times”. ???
> 
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**Author:** ![Todd1](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/838e76/32.png) [@Todd1](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Todd1)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/3 "2013-02-02T03:48:35Z")

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TBE, is this for your Wordpress site? If so isn’t there a plugin or something?

Todd  
[http://xiiro.com](http://xiiro.com)

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**Author:** ![Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/a587f6/32.png) [@Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ernie_Simpson)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/4 "2013-02-02T04:22:24Z")

</div>

It is for my little Freeway contributions - so there’s not a lot of files  
to track really. Simple, as in I’d like to display each of my little  
projects as a number of downloads vs contributions - at least at some  
future point.

I think displaying these kind of stats will help everyone - myself included

- understand their relative value. For example, those css shadows I made,  
that were so well admired, netted me a whopping $15.

So, I’m not really desperate - just kicking around, thinking out loud, I  
suppose. Todd, I’ll look at WP plugins - Walter, I’ll google some flat-file  
click-counter scripts. Thanks guys for letting me bounce the idea.

Best, always…

–  
Ernie Simpson

On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 10:48 PM, Todd [email@hidden](mailto:email@hidden) wrote:

> TBE, is this for your Wordpress site? If so isn’t there a plugin or  
> something?
> 
> Todd  
> [http://xiiro.com](http://xiiro.com)
> 
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**Author:** ![Tim3](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@Tim3](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Tim3)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/5 "2013-02-02T15:22:39Z")

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Hi Ernie,  
I’ve had a donate button the Freeway Actions site for over a decade and I’ve possibly made about $35-$40 from people adding to the tip jar. It certainly isn’t a way to make money but does help to keep the server on.  
Regards,  
Tim.

On 2 Feb 2013, at 04:22, Ernie Simpson wrote:

> I think displaying these kind of stats will help everyone - myself included
> 
> - understand their relative value. For example, those css shadows I made,  
> that were so well admired, netted me a whopping $15.

* * *

[FreewayActions.com](http://FreewayActions.com) - Freeware and commercial Actions for Freeway Express & Pro - [http://www.freewayactions.com](http://www.freewayactions.com)

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**Author:** ![waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/user_avatar/discourse.softpress.com/waltd/32/2720_2.png) [@waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/waltd)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/6 "2013-02-02T16:24:16Z")

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I went down a rabbit hole trying to solve this in a much too complex manner last night, and this morning in the clear light of a good night’s sleep, I wrote this:

> <https://gist.github.com/walterdavis/4698086>

I looks like this when run: [Click Me!](http://walterdavis.net/ernie/)

Walter

On Feb 2, 2013, at 10:22 AM, Tim Plumb wrote:

> Hi Ernie,  
> I’ve had a donate button the Freeway Actions site for over a decade and I’ve possibly made about $35-$40 from people adding to the tip jar. It certainly isn’t a way to make money but does help to keep the server on.  
> Regards,  
> Tim.
> 
> On 2 Feb 2013, at 04:22, Ernie Simpson wrote:
> 
> > I think displaying these kind of stats will help everyone - myself included
> > 
> > - understand their relative value. For example, those css shadows I made,  
> > that were so well admired, netted me a whopping $15.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [FreewayActions.com](http://FreewayActions.com) - Freeware and commercial Actions for Freeway Express & Pro - [http://www.freewayactions.com](http://www.freewayactions.com)
> 
> * * *
> 
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**Author:** ![Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/a587f6/32.png) [@Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ernie_Simpson)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/7 "2013-02-02T16:26:04Z")

</div>

Tim, thanks for the transparency. I should be tipping more, as I know that  
I’ve used and benefitted from your work and ideas for many years.

I’m not suggesting a business model, but I believe the current support  
model for Freewayers is not sustainable. The Actionsforge drive from last  
year opened my eyes to this and should, I think, have been a big wake-up  
call for everybody.

I’d just like to have some sort of metric to help everyone - especially  
myself - understand the practical limitations of this support model so that  
when I’m no longer able to keep my server running, or posting cool and  
interesting or educational things, that it comes as no mystery to anyone  
what happened. A la, Dan Jasker.

–  
Ernie Simpson

On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Tim Plumb [email@hidden](mailto:email@hidden) wrote:

> Hi Ernie,  
> I’ve had a donate button the Freeway Actions site for over a decade and  
> I’ve possibly made about $35-$40 from people adding to the tip jar. It  
> certainly isn’t a way to make money but does help to keep the server on.  
> Regards,  
> Tim.
> 
> On 2 Feb 2013, at 04:22, Ernie Simpson wrote:
> 
> > I think displaying these kind of stats will help everyone - myself  
> > included
> > 
> > - understand their relative value. For example, those css shadows I made,  
> > that were so well admired, netted me a whopping $15.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [FreewayActions.com](http://FreewayActions.com) - Freeware and commercial Actions for Freeway Express &  
> Pro - [http://www.freewayactions.com](http://www.freewayactions.com)
> 
> * * *
> 
> offtopic mailing list  
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**Author:** ![waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/user_avatar/discourse.softpress.com/waltd/32/2720_2.png) [@waltd](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/waltd)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/8 "2013-02-02T16:55:06Z")

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I realized as I was getting my second cup of coffee that I had left a glaring security hole in the first iteration, and that I hadn’t described how the download part would work. That’s been resolved in the original Gist: [gist:4698086 · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/4698086)

Walter

On Feb 2, 2013, at 11:24 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

> this morning in the clear light of a good night’s sleep, I wrote this:

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**Author:** ![Tim3](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@Tim3](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Tim3)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/9 "2013-02-02T17:04:54Z")

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Hi Ernie,  
The tip jar is just that - if the Actions you find are helpful and save you some time or trouble then hopefully a few dollars will keep them coming. A lot of my Freeway related work (Freeway Actions, Freeway Style etc) are labours of love as the money that comes in certainly doesn’t pay for the time I spend researching, creating, and supporting my efforts. That’s not to say that it isn’t fun and I’ve learnt a hell of a lot along the way.

I’m not going to share any real figures here but below is a small screen shot of part of the backend sales system that I created many moons ago and runs on the Freeway Actions server;  
[http://d.pr/i/aQ8B](http://d.pr/i/aQ8B)

I found that I could look at sales figures all day long without seeing any real trends until I struck on the idea of plotting the figures using Google’s charting API;

> **[Charts  |  Google for Developers](https://developers.google.com/chart/)**
>
> ब्राउज़र और मोबाइल डिवाइसों के लिए इंटरैक्टिव चार्ट जोड़ने के संसाधन देखें.

It may be worth showing the download to income ratio in a similar fashion although you can do this quite easily in a column form without the charts API just by massaging the numbers you are working with and setting some div widths accordingly.  
Regards,  
Tim.

On 2 Feb 2013, at 16:26, Ernie Simpson wrote:

> I’m not suggesting a business model, but I believe the current support  
> model for Freewayers is not sustainable. The Actionsforge drive from last  
> year opened my eyes to this and should, I think, have been a big wake-up  
> call for everybody.

* * *

[FreewayActions.com](http://FreewayActions.com) - Freeware and commercial Actions for Freeway Express & Pro - [http://www.freewayactions.com](http://www.freewayactions.com)

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**Author:** ![Tim3](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/f14d63/32.png) [@Tim3](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Tim3)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/10 "2013-02-02T17:11:09Z")

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This is great Walter. I must admit I love the beauty of simple solutions like this.

I was thinking when I first saw this thread that you may be able to do all of this using Google tools; a Google Docs spreadsheet to store the data and the charts API to display it back on the page. If it worked then you’d be able to bypass the initial setup and any permissions issues.

I’ll add it to the end of my rainy day list. Plenty of those this time of year here in the UK. 🙂  
Regards,  
Tim.

On 2 Feb 2013, at 16:24, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

> I looks like this when run: [Click Me!](http://walterdavis.net/ernie/)

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Experienced Freeway designer for hire - [http://www.freewayactions.com](http://www.freewayactions.com)

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**Author:** ![Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/a587f6/32.png) [@Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ernie_Simpson)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/11 "2013-02-02T17:54:53Z")

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Walter, thanks for this! I didn’t expect you to work up a solution, but  
that is so like you.

Gracias.

–  
Ernie Simpson

On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Walter Lee Davis [email@hidden](mailto:email@hidden)wrote:

> I realized as I was getting my second cup of coffee that I had left a  
> glaring security hole in the first iteration, and that I hadn’t described  
> how the download part would work. That’s been resolved in the original  
> Gist: [gist:4698086 · GitHub](https://gist.github.com/4698086)
> 
> Walter
> 
> On Feb 2, 2013, at 11:24 AM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:
> 
> > this morning in the clear light of a good night’s sleep, I wrote this:
> 
> * * *
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**Author:** ![Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/a587f6/32.png) [@Ernie\_Simpson](https://discourse.softpress.com/u/Ernie_Simpson)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 6:09pm UTC](https://discourse.softpress.com/t/pro-simple-tracking-of-file-downloads/16261/12 "2013-02-02T18:09:18Z")

</div>

Tim, thanks so much for sharing these tools. I think this could be very  
helpful to shaping the overall conversation and perhaps inspiring a more  
active support dynamic.

–  
Ernie Simpson

On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 12:04 PM, Tim Plumb [email@hidden](mailto:email@hidden) wrote:

> Hi Ernie,  
> The tip jar is just that - if the Actions you find are helpful and save  
> you some time or trouble then hopefully a few dollars will keep them  
> coming. A lot of my Freeway related work (Freeway Actions, Freeway Style  
> etc) are labours of love as the money that comes in certainly doesn’t pay  
> for the time I spend researching, creating, and supporting my efforts.  
> That’s not to say that it isn’t fun and I’ve learnt a hell of a lot along  
> the way.
> 
> I’m not going to share any real figures here but below is a small screen  
> shot of part of the backend sales system that I created many moons ago and  
> runs on the Freeway Actions server;  
> [http://d.pr/i/aQ8B](http://d.pr/i/aQ8B)
> 
> I found that I could look at sales figures all day long without seeing any  
> real trends until I struck on the idea of plotting the figures using  
> Google’s charting API;  
> [Charts &nbsp;|&nbsp; Google for Developers](https://developers.google.com/chart/)
> 
> It may be worth showing the download to income ratio in a similar fashion  
> although you can do this quite easily in a column form without the charts  
> API just by massaging the numbers you are working with and setting some div  
> widths accordingly.  
> Regards,  
> Tim.
> 
> On 2 Feb 2013, at 16:26, Ernie Simpson wrote:
> 
> > I’m not suggesting a business model, but I believe the current support  
> > model for Freewayers is not sustainable. The Actionsforge drive from last  
> > year opened my eyes to this and should, I think, have been a big wake-up  
> > call for everybody.
> 
> * * *
> 
> [FreewayActions.com](http://FreewayActions.com) - Freeware and commercial Actions for Freeway Express &  
> Pro - [http://www.freewayactions.com](http://www.freewayactions.com)
> 
> * * *
> 
> offtopic mailing list  
> email@hidden  
> Update your subscriptions at:  
> [http://freewaytalk.net/person/options](http://freewaytalk.net/person/options)

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