Word count goals = counter

[mystiri_1]

I'm currently working towards monthly word count goals, and I know other people here can probably say the same. So I was wondering, can anybody here recommend an easy-to-install word count widget for DW? I'm talking about the little bars you see around Nano, where you have a goal and it measures your progress towards it. I've seen them around, but have no idea where to get one, or how to add it to my DW page. It also probably needs to be fairly easy to update, too.

I figure somebody here must be tech-savvy enough to answer this. Thanks in advance!

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

I've never used one myself, but there's a little bit of discussion (& some links) here (& in this follow-up post).

[mystiri_1]

Okay, after checking this out and doing some fooling around, I seem to have found something that works. So I shall share:

1. In the text section of 'Customise your style' I put 'Words For the Month' as a heading.

2. I went to www.languageisavirus.com/nanowrimo/word-meter.html and input my information (current word count and goal) into the boxes. I then copy/pasted the resulting html into the custom text box.

3. I placed a url in the box below. After the first attempt showed me that clicking on the meter also took you to the meter website, I changed the url so that it actually led to the 'Custom text' page. This way, to update your word count you can click on the meter to get the new html code, then click on the header (Words for the Month) to go straight to the custom text page to paste it in.

4. The first time you do this, you'll want to make sure the custom text module is somewhere visible. After saving changes, click Modules from the tab at the side. Enabled modules are numbered. I ranked mine 'Profile' 1, 'Calendar' 2 and 'Custom text' 3, which placed it directly below my calendar. Relevant and easy to find.

Example is now on my journal. We shall see if it proves easy enough to keep up - updating the count seems a little cumbersome at the moment.

[intothisshadow]

There's some options at http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters I've personally used both the Writertopia one at http://www.writertopia.com/toolbox/meters and Write Or Die ones (example at: http://wraithwell.livejournal.com/4242.html, I don't know if it's on the Write or Die site anymore; I can give you the html code for the counter if you want to try it out).

[adalger]

Nice! Since it's relevant, I'd like to post a link to this comment for the folks over in style_system, if that's okay with you?

[mystiri_1]

That's fine with me, but I will be adding a 'how to' post this evening, with pros and cons for the different meters I have been given, so if you want to wait, you can link to that instead.

[adalger]

That would be awesome! :)

[mystiri_1]

Thank you! These links were very helpful - and the meters are much easier to update than the first one I found.

[mystiri_1]

The new post is here. And I tried out all of these on my own journal without breaking anything, so I'd say it's actually relatively easy.