rename to micro-analytics

Author: mxstbr

README.md

@@ -1,18 +1,49 @@
-# `mxstbr.blog` view counter
+# `micro-analytics`
 
-A simple Node microservice to count the views of blogposts on `mxstbr.blog`.
+Analytics as a simple Node.js microservice.
 
-## Uses
+With less than 50 lines of code this service is the smallest analytics you'll ever need. It does nothing except count the views of a page on your site via an API.
+
+(there is currently no frontend to consume the statistics, though writing one is on the to-do list)
+
+## Built with
 
 - [`micro`](https://github.com/zeit/micro) to create the service.
-- [`level`](https://github.com/level/level) to store the data.
-- [`then-levelup`](https://github.com/then/then-levelup) to promisify `level`.
+- [`level`](https://github.com/level/level) to store the data. (and [`then-levelup`](https://github.com/then/then-levelup) to promisify `level`)
+
+## Usage
+
+### Starting the service
+
+1. `git clone git@github.com:mxstbr/micro-analytics` to get the repo.
+2. `npm install` to install the dependencies.
+3. `npm start` to start the service.
+
+And that's it! 🎉
 
-`views.mxstbr.blog` is hosted on a [DigitalOcean droplet](https://m.do.co/c/d371ed7f99af) (ref link) of the smallest size (5EUR/month), using `pm2` for running it on startup and nginx as a reverse proxy.
+### Tracking views
+
+To track a view simply send a request to `/<yourpagepath>`. If you send a `GET` request, the request will return the total views. If you send a `POST` request, the views will increment but you're not going to get the total views back.
+
+This is how you'd track pageviews for a website: (though note that this can be used to track anything you want)
+
+```HTML
+<script>
+  fetch('servicedomain.com' + window.location.pathname)
+    // Log total pageviews for current page to console
+    .then(response => response.json())
+    .then(json => console.log(json.views))
+    .catch(err => console.log('Something went wrong:', err))
+</script>
+```
 
 ## Gotchas
 
-Currently this uses promisified `level` for data storage, which doesn't have atomic operations.
+Currently this uses promisified `level` for data storage, which doesn't have atomic operations. If you have a recommendation for a filesystem-based data storage module for Node that has atomic operations, please let us know!
+
+## Contributing
+
+If you run `npm run dev` the server will restart every time you edit the code. Perfect for development of `micro-analytics`!
 
 ## License
 

index.js

@@ -6,10 +6,10 @@ const { send, createError, sendError } = require('micro')
 const db = then(level('blog-views'))
 
 module.exports = async function (req, res) {
-  // Check that a blogpost is provided
+  // Check that a page is provided
   const { pathname } = url.parse(req.url)
   if (pathname.length <= 1) {
-    throw createError(400, 'Please include a path to a blogpost.')
+    throw createError(400, 'Please include a path to a page.')
   }
   if (req.method !== 'GET') {
     throw createError(400, 'Please make a GET request.')
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ module.exports = async function (req, res) {
     send(res, 200, { views: views + 1 })
   } catch (err) {
     if (err.notFound) {
-      // Initialise the post with one view
+      // Initialise the page with one view
       await db.put(pathname, 1)
       send(res, 200, { views: 1 })
     } else {

package.json

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 {
-  "name": "blog-view-counter",
-  "version": "1.0.0",
-  "description": "A simple node microservice to count the views of a blogpost.",
+  "name": "micro-analytics",
+  "version": "0.1.0",
+  "description": "Analytics as a Node.js microservice.",
   "main": "index.js",
   "scripts": {
-    "start": "micro -p 3000 -H localhost index.js",
+    "start": "micro index.js",
     "dev": "NODE_ENV=development nodemon --config package.json index.js"
   },
   "author": "Max Stoiber <contact@mxstbr.com> (http://mxstbr.com/)",