NAME Acme::Odometer - Create graphical web counters VERSION version 0.0.4 SYNOPSIS # write the image to a file for your viewing pleasure use Acme::Odometer; use File::Slurp qw( write_file ); my $odometer = Acme::Odometer->new( asset_path => 'path/to/digit/files', file_extension => 'png', ); my $image = $odometer->image( '000123456789' ); # write as a GIF write_file( "counter.gif", $image->gif ); # write as a PNG write_file( "counter.png", $image->png ); # or (for example) in a Dancer app # place an odometer graphic at /counter?count=12345 # in real life, you'll want to validate etc before creating the graphic get '/counter' => sub { header( 'Content-Type' => 'image/png' ); my $odometer = Acme::Odometer->new( asset_path => 'path/to/digit/files', file_extension => 'png', ); $odometer->image( params->{count} )->png; }; DESCRIPTION This is a BETA release. The interface is still subject to change. Acme::Odometer makes it easy to produce graphical web counters. You know, those odometer style thingies you used to see on a lot of geocities pages? This module takes a bunch of images of different digits, strings them together and passes them back to you as a GD::Image object. CONSTRUCTOR AND STARTUP new() Creates and returns a new Acme::Odometer object. The following parameters can be passed to new(). * "asset_path => "/path/to/odometer/files"" The path to your asset folder. The asset folder will contain 0..9 image files of equal width, named 0.gif, 1.gif, 2.gif, 3.gif etc. The images can be in any format which GD can read. This parameter is required. * "file_extension => 'png'" The extension of the files in your asset directory: "gif", "GIF", "png", "jpg", "jpeg", etc. This module makes no assumptions about what is or is not a valid extension. This parameter is optional and defaults to "gif". my $odometer = Acme::Odometer->new( asset_path => 'path/to/digit/files', file_extension => 'png', ); image Returns a GD::Image object, which you can use to print your image my $odometer = Acme::Odometer->new( asset_path => 'path/to/digit/files', file_extension => 'png', ); binmode STDOUT; print $odometer->image->png; RESOURCES All you need to get started is the images, which should consist of the digits 0-9, all in the same file format and all of equal width. For example, see for a bunch of insanely retro counter graphics. Or, see the assets folder of this distribution for a basic odometer. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It's hard to trace the history of a lot of web counter graphics which have been circulated as they seem to originate in the Wild West of the internet. The images bundled with this dist appear to have been created by Heini Withagen, but this is hard to verify since the original page 404s now and also 404s in the earliest wayback machine snapshot (1999). Original link found at . AUTHOR Olaf Alders COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2014 by Olaf Alders. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.