This howto was originally contributed by davidjaymz

To install Mint with Expression Engine is relatively straightforward.

First thing you need to do is decide whether your gonna run your Mint install from EE’s db or from its own db. Either way you need to know four things.

1. MySQL Database Name
2. MySQL Server Address (often “localhost” or the server IP address)
3. MySQL Username
4. MySQL Password

If your going to install to the same db you’ve installed EE then the db info can be found in your config.php file in your system folder. Lines 11 to 14 should have the following info

$conf['db_hostname'] = "DB_HOST";
$conf['db_username'] = "DB_LOGIN";
$conf['db_password'] = "DB_PASSWORD";
$conf['db_name'] = "DB_NAME";

Mint’s configuration file is located in the /config/ folder of your Mint install; it is called db.php. You will need to open it and set the following values using the information above, either from your EE install or your new db info. Of course you will need to keep the table prefix values so Mint does not overwrite any EE tables.

'server'    => 'DB_HOST,
'username'  => 'DB_LOGIN',
'password'  => 'DB_PASSWORD',
'database'  => 'DB_NAME',

Now that your Mint configuration file is ready, you can upload the folder to your web site as per the instructions. Browsing to this folder should walk you through the remaining install process.

Once Mint is installed the last step that remains is adding the JavaScript Mint needs to run to the pages you want statistics logged for.

For Expression Engine there are two ways to go about this.

One: You can put the call code into your root index.php file. This index.php file is the main starting point for your site. Every page runs through it so you’ll be able to log info from every single page.

Opening up the index.php page you’ll see a section of copyright info just pop the following line of code below that (after the closing comment */)

include_once($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"]."/mint/config/auto.php");

This will put the JS call into your header below the <title> tag. Once you’ve done that reupload the file and surf to any of your pages. Check the source and you should see the call like this

<script src="/mint/?js" type="text/javascript"></script></head>

Two: The other way to log your pages is to put the mint JavaScript into your templates. This is useful if you only want to log hits on certain pages. Again this is very straightforward. Using the EE Control panel just surf to your templates and open the relevant template and place the following code just above the </head> tag and below the <title> tag.

<script src="/mint/?js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Save the template and surf to one of the relevant pages and check the source to see that it has been inserted correctly.

If the code is in the right place then your ready to start tracking your stats.

The code snippets above assume you’ve installed Mint at the root of your site. you may have to tweak the code if you’ve placed Mint someplace else.

Hope this helps you get started with Mint and EE.

Nevermind… I kicked around a bit and figured it out. I needed to uncheck the global option “Trim www and index.* from urls (This will logically collapse two different urls that point to the same file. May break some urls.)” Everything is working correctly now. Great app by the way.

update - well, i sorted it through trial and error, and now it’s working (using the method of inserting the call code to index.php). brilliant.

for those who might run into the same problem - the otherwise massively helpful text above references “you’ll see a section of copyright info just pop the following line of code below that” - that’s not quite accurate. right underneath the copyright info, you’ll see a line break that looks like this:

if you insert the code there, nothing will happen. however, the next line has */ and if you insert the code underneath THAT, voila.

perhaps this is obvious if you’re a hardcore PHP coder but I am not.

Just a quick question from me…when I put the Mint call into index.php I get this:

I am not getting the language=”javascript” part.

Is that bad? :)

Is it correct to assume if i have Mint going in one tab and surf to my site from another tab (same browser) that mint will not record my actions.

Thanks First solution is working as a charm…