Skip to content
This repository has been archived by the owner on Aug 10, 2020. It is now read-only.

Latest commit

 

History

History
145 lines (102 loc) · 5.11 KB

README.rdoc

File metadata and controls

145 lines (102 loc) · 5.11 KB

Analytical

<img src=“https://secure.travis-ci.org/jkrall/analytical.png” />

Gem for managing multiple analytics services in your rails app.

Service implementations include:

Usage

Add the following to your controllers:

analytical

Add the middleware configuration in config/application.rb:

config.middleware.use Analytical::Middleware

Add a configuration file (config/analytical.yml) to declare your API keys, like so:

production:
  google:
    key: UA-5555555-5
  clicky:
    key: 55555
development:
test:

You can add different configurations for different environments.

By default, all the declared analytics modules are loaded. You can override this behavior in the controller.

analytical :modules=>[:console, :google, :clicky]

Then, in your template files, you’ll want to add the analytical helper methods for initializing the tracking javascript:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <%= raw analytical.head_prepend_javascript %>
    <title>Example</title>
    <%= stylesheet_link_tag :all %>
    <%= javascript_include_tag :defaults %>
    <%= csrf_meta_tag %>
    <%= raw analytical.head_append_javascript %>
  </head>
  <body>
    <%= raw analytical.body_prepend_javascript %>
    <%= yield %>
    <%= raw analytical.body_append_javascript %>
  </body>
</html>

You’ll want to add the identify() command as a before_filter:

before_filter :analytical_identify
protected
def analytical_identify
  analytical.identify(current_user.id, :email => current_user.email) if current_user
end

You can sprinkle the track() and event() tracking methods throughout your views & controllers as needed.

analytical.track '/a/really/nice/url'
analytical.event 'Some Awesome Event', :with=>:data

It’s possible to conditionally disable analytics by specifying a ‘disable_if` method.

analytical :disable_if => lambda{ |controller| controller.i_can_haz_tracking? }

Analytical also provides the ability to filter your active modules dynamically:

analytical :filter_modules => lambda{ |controller, modules|
  controller.use_google_analytics? ? modules : modules - [:google]
}

This can be useful for enabling the console logger optionally in your app, based on a request parameter:

:filter_modules => lambda { |controller, modules|
  controller.use_console_logger? ? [:console] : modules
}

Adding new modules

New modules should be fairly easy to add. Follow the structure that I’ve used in the Clicky, Google, and KISSMetrics modules… and you should be fine. All modules should include the Analytical::Base::Api module, so that they have some default behavior for methods that they don’t support or need.

Javascript tracking/event commands

Sometimes you want to trigger an analytics track/event via javascript. Analytical now provides a solution for this by default. Appended to your <head> is a simple javascript object that will contain “instantaneous” versions of the tracking commands for each of your modules.

You call these analytical commands like this:

<script type="text/javascript">Analytical.track('/some/url');</script>
<script type="text/javascript">Analytical.event('A javascript event', {with: 'data'});</script>

When you call these commands, it will pass the track/event name & data on to each of the modules. (Take a look at the simple javascript helpers in your <head> for more information.)

Note on Patches/Pull Requests

I would be extremely happy to accept contributions to this project! If you think something should work differently, send me a message and I’d love to discuss your ideas. Even better:

  • Fork the project.

  • Make your feature addition or bug fix.

  • Add specs for it. This is important so I don’t break it in a future version unintentionally.

  • Commit, do not mess with rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself I can ignore when I pull)

  • Send me a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.

Current Contributors

These fine folks have contributed patches and new features to this project:

Thanks guys!

Copyright © 2010 Joshua Krall. See LICENSE for details.