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LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
Name: LxS Hit Tracker
Version: 0.9.07 build 146 (Alpha)
Compatible with: Textpattern 4.0 – 4.0.1
Author: LeeStewart
Author URL
Download URL
I need help designing my plugins charts and tables! Read the contest announcement in the Textpatter Forum!
This is the last public Alpha of my hit tracking plugins. If you’re running a previous version, go to the “extensions:logger prefs” tab and click the “Uninstall” link at the bottom, then use admin:plugins to remove the plugins. Last you’ll need to install the new files from the distribution package.
Note that you’ll lose all of your hit tracking data, since the database has changed so drastically. In a week the system should be “feature complete” and I’ll release a beta version. That will cause you to lose your logged information, but for the last time. Promise.
I’ve decided to put up a tip jar for those that want to help support future coding of the plugin. I’m not holding anything for ransom, just asking that people show their appreciation through my PayPal tip jar .
Here’s a quick overview of the plugin – check out my site for more information. The documentation has grown out of control – this thing is getting Katamari big!
New in This Release
- Name change and another plugin: one plugin was good, two were great – now there’s three! This caused the tags to change names, sorry. Don’t worry, I won’t be changing names again!
- Country and city tracking added. This works very well, although it slows things down (requires a lookup from a database on my server).
<pre>
<txp:lxs_log_if_known_location>
<p>You’re from <txp:lxs_log_country_code /> :
<txp:lxs_log_location />!</p>
<txp:else />
<p>I don’t know you?!</p>
</txp:lxs_log_if_known_location>
</pre>
- 404s are now handled better internally and there’s no longer the URL mangling i=123 thing. I’m pretty sure that was the worst hack I’ve ever coded and the old code was known to cause abnormal back-hair growth.
- The plugin now tracks file downloads. Not sure if this is finished, I want to figure out when a file isn’t fully downloaded and log that. There’s a new chart on the detailed screen that lists the top 10 file downloads.
- Auto-upgrade of the plugins! The “Configurator” has a link that will appear when the next version is released!
- Better “duplicate hit” management. The new code allows me to track the “Average Page View Time” (see View Details screen). Also removed ridiculously high numbers meaning the user went to your page, ate lunch, then came back and clicked something else. There’s now a ‘-’ flag for the first hit a user makes, then the ‘+’ flag for all other hits.
- Other new charts include the “Hits by Day” quick view of the past week. Also a “Countries” chart to show the percentage of hits per location. Now that we have so many charts, you can disable them
and rearrange them with the “Configurator”!
- New “Panel layout” (located in the “Configurator” plugin) allows you to check off the charts you want to view and then select a rough placement, using radio buttons. It needs a bit of work, but you shouldn’t have to use the screen much – just set it up once and go!
- The “Categorize Hits” page is working. If an unknown search engine, OS, Spammer, etc is encountered – you can let the system know here. There’s an update feature to upload any changes you make to a central server so others can share your configuration.
- Minor bug fixes and added tags that were left out. For example, you can now use lxs_log_if_referrer or print out the total of all hits stored in the system with the spanky lxs_log_counter tag. Already had a counter on your site and don’t want to lose track of the old
hits? Use this:<txp:lxs_log_counter num_old_hits="10000" />.
What’s Missing?
There’s still a bunch of things I haven’t completed:
- Categorize Hits – still a bit of work to do with this.
- Control the look/CSS of the Log and Details screens.
- Full Internationalization, with downloadable language files.
- Documentation and help information everywhere.
- Detailed client info – resolution, is JavaScript enabled, etc.
- Added images where possible.
- More charts – weekly hits and monthly hits.
- Speed up the main “View Log” page, in fact speed everywhere.
- Need more tags! More options!
Thanks for helping me test this thing. I think it’s a pretty useful tool for tracking visitors on your website. The feedback I’ve been getting is invaluable!
[Lee]
Monkeys could have written a better post..
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
Chinese visitors to my site always most welcome
:)
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
Funny you should mention that shishira. I was helping someone in Singapore last week and they turned out to be Indian, southern if my memory serves though I didn’t find out exactly where they were from. :)
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
OK Lee. Here come the difficult questions. I’ve just switched Hit Tracker’s “Handle Redirects” off and removed the 404 URL I was using and assumed this would return it to normal TXP error handling but it didn’t. I ended up with no error handling at all. Just kept getting the front-page as used to be the case.
Next. I have a world-wide reputation, good or bad I don’t know but I have one. On the “View Details” screen I have the Countries listing at the bottom which is good because I currently have about 70 entries in it so it’s getting a bit lonnnnnnng. What chance of restricting the window length and adding a scrollbar?
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
thebombsite wrote:
OK Lee. Here come the difficult questions. I’ve just switched Hit Tracker’s “Handle Redirects” off and removed the 404 URL
There’s no way to turn the 404 error handling off, removing the “Default 404 URL” causes the code to use the homepage of your site. My intention was to add a “Handle 404s” parameter on the GUI.
“Redirects” are more of a way to take an incoming request and map it to another page.
On the “View Details” screen I have the Countries listing at the bottom which is good because I currently have about 70 entries
Yeah, I’ve got the same thing – it’s interesting to see that %0.5 of my traffic is from China, but the list is too long to be useful. I coded an “other” item, so that there would be the top %80 of the countries listed separately, then I’d group the remaining into “other”. I didn’t like the code (it was too clunky) and I changed it to list the top 9 countries and “other”, but “other” was the longest chart value by far. I’ll tweak things and find a more graceful way to handle this.
Thanks for the feedback. Good to see you’re really using the plugin!
[Lee]
Monkeys could have written a better post..
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
7700 hits since Saturday morning. Did I say it would get a work-out on thebombsite?
Stuart
In a Time of Universal Deceit
Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
I finally completed the client detection code – more details about the browser (JavaScript, cookies, Flash ver, screen res, etc) and I can detect the viewer’s location with greater accuracy. In the theory that a picture is worth a thousand words…
[Lee]
Monkeys could have written a better post..
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
Is there anyway to set the log purging to days instead of months? Even after two weeks I have around 50,000 log entries which causes the log page to run extremely slow. If I could set it to 8 days it would give me plenty of at-a-glance info but when I set the logs to expire after .25 month, the log dissappeared. I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall the plugin and tables to get it to work again.
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
I’m wondering if you’d consider writing a TXP plugin that handles only error pages, without the tracking? I’d happily donate to that, and am sure there are many other people who would like a simple plugin for handling error pages. :)
Last edited by Nathan Smith (2005-10-24 04:22:37)
Are we all figments of God’s imagination?
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
RenJonsin wrote:
Is there anyway to set the log purging to days instead of months? Even after two weeks I have around 50,000 log entries which causes the log page to run extremely slow.
I’m going to keep it as months, but will speed up the page that lists all the hits. Right now I select everything in the database, then go through and weed out the items you don’t want to view (like your own hits or spiders). Then I display part of the resultant list.
I coded this quickly and used a “brute force” method so I wouldn’t have to think too much on the SQL statement to get just the data that I wanted. The database fields were changing and it was just easier this way. But slower.
when I set the logs to expire after .25 month, the log dissappeared. I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall the plugin and tables to get it to work again.
Ack, thanks for finding that bug!
[Lee]
Monkeys could have written a better post..
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
I just a basic user here, that would enjoy some statistics – but I do not understand what I do wrong. I have installed the package, turned on the plugs, followed the instructions and everyything seems too be right – but it does not record any hits. The Log View is empty, even though I know people visited my site. If I turn off the plugs I can see it in the ordinary Log View.
Any idéas?
And one more thing – are there any language files. If noot mayby I could help there.
all we need is some creactivism
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Re: LxS Hit Tracker 0.9.07 Final Alpha!
I’m very happy with this plugin, it’s a huge improvement on the standard Txp logs, but a few things don’t work as expected.
- My own visits are sometimes recognized ad such, and sometimes they aren’t, and I do have a fixed, unchanging, IP-address.
- Lots of localized Google servers (google.nl, google.be) are not recognized as search engines, which means user has to specify them all by hand.
- I cannot seem to find a way to access a list of the redirects I defined (to change some of them).
- Most importantly: some of the aggregated numbers don’t make sense. I now have 1487 unique hits recorded, of which 1204 spider hits (mainly Google). But Googlebot doesn’t have that many identities, IP-wise, I think, and even if it did, these should, I think, be counted as one unique hit. Or perhaps ‘unique hit’ doesn’t mean what I think it should mean (‘unique visitor’s visits’, which is what the user would really be interested in)?
Here’s hoping this plugin will be further developed!
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