Writertopia provides two graphical progress meters that can be embedded in your web page or blog. The meters are extremely easy to use: simply call a web address and the appropriate picture is delivered. You can use a simple word counter to determine the size of your work.

Picometer: The Simple Progress Meter

For a no-frills, small image, use the picometer. The progress meter image is generated whenever you use the following web address (URL):

Customizing the progress meter is easy. Just start with the basic image HTML tag:

<img src="http://picometer.writertopia.com">

Add values for "words" (how many words you've finished) and "target" (the number of words you want to complete). These values can be set by expanding the web address. For example, if we've completed 10,000 of the 50,000 target words, we change the image's web address:

The target word count is 50,000 by default. We've appended to the basic image URL a slash (/) and a setting=value pair. Using the previous web address in an image tag lets us retrieve a simple progress graphic:

If you want to add more than one setting, link them with the ampersand (&). We can ask Writertopia to set a target of 20000 words by using

http://picometer.writertopia.com/words=10000&target=20000

The above example sets the word count to 10,000 and the target word count to 20,000.

Writertopia Progress Meter

You can also use the Writertopia meter, a cartoon that lets you show your current mood as well as the word count. As your word count increases, the stack of pages in the graphic rises. You can retrieve this image by using "meter" instead of "picometer" in the web address:

Changing Your Mood

Change the mood of the writer in the image by setting "mood" to a number from 0 to 7:

By setting the mood to 3, we've made the writer sleep in the graphic.

Moods generally go from bad to good as we move from 0 to 7:

When you reach the target word count, the writer in the image will celebrate. Click the following link to see.

To embed the image in a web page or blog, just use the URL as the source in an image command:

<img src="http://meter.writertopia.com/words=30000&mood=1">

If you like the meter, please link back to this page so others can find Writertopia's progress meter.