SlimStat on CMSMadeSimple

From SoftwarePractice.org

I wanted a simple stats package to put on websites that I do for other people. In particular, I have a number of small websites for musical ensembles and the like, and I think those people would be interested and even excited to see where their site is being viewed from. For this, AWStats is overkill.

I decided to give SlimStat a try. Unlike AWStats, it doesn't analyze the log files, it executes a bit of PHP code on each page load. So it won't, for example, show image files (unless they are being downloaded via a PHP wrapper), or total bandwidth utilization. It uses mySQL to store its data, which I think is a plus. I decided to give it a go on a couple of installations of CMSMadeSimple.

Install

Installation was easy. Just download it and follow their instructions. I used the same database as the CMS install. Normally I would use a prefix on the tables but since there are only three and they are called slimstat, slimstat_dt, and slimstat_iptocountry, I left them as-is. (Always better to do what the software wants by default, if possible...)

To get slimstat in use by CMSMadeSimple (this was written for CMSMS 0.12.1), I had to modify the code. It seems not to be possible to paste PHP code into the CMSMS templates or global HTML blocks. (This is a good thing.)

So, modify the index.php file. Locate the line:

require_once(dirname(__FILE__)."/include.php"); #Makes gCms object

After it, add:

# Include SlimStat data collection script
include_once($config['root_path'].'/slimstat/inc.stats.php');

That's it! Bang through a few pages on the site and then reload slimstat in the browser.

http://www.mysite.com/slimstat/

Restricting Access

I'd like to restrict access somewhat. Ideally, someone logged into CMSMadeSimple should be able to view the SlimStat pages, without entering any additional passwords.

I'll work on it...