Super Counter – Laravel Page and Article Hit Counter

Here's a tutorial on how to use the Super Counter, a Laravel package for implementing a page and article hit counter.

Introduction to Super Counter

As you strive to become an acclaimed article writer or blogger, trackable metrics can be beneficial in understanding your audience behavior and content performance. Unfortunately, many content management systems (CMS) and Laravel applications lack a built-in hit counter for pages or articles. This is where Super Counter comes in!

Super Counter is a handy Laravel package that provides you with a simple and configurable way to track page hits and article views. Using this package, you'll be able to:

• Track page views and visits
• Monitor article engagements and popularity
• Implement smart caching for improved performance

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use Super Counter to set up a page and article hit counter in your Laravel project.

Step 1: Installation

To begin, you'll need to install Super Counter using Laravel's package manager. Execute the following command in your terminal:

composer require super-counter(super-counter)

Step 2: Add the Service Provider

Publish the package's service provider by running the following Artisan command:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="SuperCounterSuperCounter ServiceProvider"

This step will add the necessary registration code to your config/app.php file under the providers array.

Step 3: Configure Super Counter

Open the config/super-counter.php configuration file and set the following:

// Default cache driver (e.g., Redis, Memcached, or File)
'storage' => SuperCounterStorageFileCache::class,

// Expire cache after 10 minutes
'cache_minutes' => 10,

Adjust these values according to your project requirements.

Step 4: Set Up Routing for Hit Counter

In this step, you'll configure Laravel's routing to collect hit data. Open routes/web.php and add the following code:

Route::get('/hit-counter-test', function () {
    return view('hit-counter-test');
});

This route will serve a simple test page for displaying hit counter data.

Step 5: Enqueue the Hit Counter Logic

Create a new Controller using the following command:

php artisan make:controller HitCounterController

In the created HitCounterController file, add the following logic:

<?php

namespace AppHttpControllers;

use IlluminateSupportFacadesCache;
use AppHttpControllersController;
use SuperCounterHitHitCounter;

class HitCounterController extends Controller
{
    public function index(Request $request)
    {
        // Get the Hit Counter instance
        $counter = app(HitCounter::class);

        // Increment the hit counter cache
        $counter->incrementHit();

        return view('hit-counter', ['hits' => $counter->getHits() ]);
    }
}

This controller will decrement the hit counter cache.

Step 6: Create the Hit Counter Views

Create a new views directory (app/views/) and add the hit-counter-test.blade.php and hit-counter.blade.php files:

<!-- hit-counter-test.blade.php -->
<h2>Hit Counter Test Page</h2>
<strong>Page Hits: {{$hits}}</strong>

<!-- hit-counter.blade.php -->
<h2>Article Hit Counter</h2>
<strong>Article Views: {{$hits}}</strong>

These are basic examples of how the hit counter data will display.

Step 7: Add the Hit Counter Route

Update your web.php routes file to call the hit controller with routing that matches your needs:

Route::get('/hit-counter', 'HitCounterController@index');
Route::get('/hit-counter-test', 'HitController@index');

And that's it! Once you've completed these steps, you'll have set up a basic page hit counter and article hit counter using Super Counter in Laravel.

In the next segment, we'll explore a more advanced example of this package by implementing caching options and exploring the package documentation.