alt-art / github-counter

Simple and usefull views counter for GitHub profiles README.md

GitHub views counter

Better than other views counter, this one checks the IP address of the visitor and counts only one view per IP address on 48 hours.

Why?

• The other views counter don't have customization options.
• They count the views of the same visitor multiple times causing the number to be inflated.
• They are hosted on a third party which is not good for privacy and they can be down.

How to use

Host this script on a cloud server or on your own server with yarn start:prod.

You can use Heroku or other cloud service to host this script.

You have to create a Postgres database and a redis instance.

Add the environment variables DATABASE_URL, PORT and REDIS_TLS_URL to your environment.

You can use PRIVATE_USERNAME to host only for your personal use. Example: PRIVATE_USERNAME=your_username and then https://your-server-domain.com/count/your_username

Then take the endpoint and add it to your GitHub profile README.md file.

![](https://your-server-domain.com/count/your-username)

How to customize

• Make your art on a vector editor like Inkscape

• On counter text, use {count} to display the views count.

• On profile text, use {profile} to display the profile name.

Note: You can't convert the text to path on Inkscape, you have to keep it as text.

Note: You can use both {count} and {profile} on the same text.

• Then, save the art as a SVG file on src/templates folder.

• Then, use the template query parameter with the name of the SVG file to use it.

![](https://your-server-domain.com/count/your-username?template=your-template.svg)

Questions

• Why I have to host this app myself?

  Because I don't want to have the responsibility of the data and privacy of the users and I don't want to pay for the hosting for everyone using this app.

• Why svg?

  Because it's easy to use an vector editor to customize the svg file.

• Why redis?

  To check the IP address of the visitor and count only one view per IP address on 48 hours.

How to contribute

• Fork the repo
• Create a new branch
• Make your changes
• Check the code with yarn lint
• Create a pull request