Forum Home Enhancements - Track Guest Visits

This modification is no longer available or supported.

This tracks the number of guests that have visited a forum each day. This isn't possible in stock vbulletin as no record is kept of guest visits, they are a 'realtime' display only. This will add (another) section to the "What's Going On" area.

Options / Features ;

* The ability to turn it on/off.
* The ability to turn just the display on/off.
* The ability to allow (or prevent) certain usergroups viewing the display.
* The ability to run the display code on all pages (not just forumhome).
* The ability to switch between 'Today' and Rolling 24 Hours display (default).
* The list of guests can be set to be always collapsed on initial view.
* The script that the Guest is running is logged (e.g. showthread, usercp etc).
* The request variables in use are logged (e.g. threadid, userid etc).
* The guest table can be cleaned of old records to help control it's size.
* Controls for the displays automatic template update.
* The datastore read (for spider detection) will read from the File/APC/Memcache/Xcache datastore [if used].
* Guest Views data collection - tracking each guests viewing of the forum index page, forums and threads.
* Guest Views data collection can be separately disabled.
* Multiple guest visits to the same page are logged separately.
* Clicking on a Guest type in the main display will list all recent visits by guests of that type.
* Clicking on the option in the guest listing will show that guests viewing data (if enabled).
* Usergroup permissions are done with the standard vbulleten usergroup permissions system.
* The option to keep a record of [and display] the most ever guests can be enabled.

Four new usergroup permissions are provided in the usergroup manager.

* Can View the Guests Visited Display - Members can view the guests visited display on Forumhome.
* Can View Guest IP Addresses - Members can see the ip addresses of visiting guests.
* Can View Guest Visits List - Members can view the list of guest visits page.
* Can View Guest Tracking Data - Members can view the individual guest visit tracking page.

* All (non usergroup) modification settings are in vBulletin Options > Guest Tracking.

To install (or upgrade);

• Unzip the XML files.
• Upload the bitfields file to your ../includes/xml folder.
• If upgrading from the vb 3.6 version, delete the bitfield_track-guests.xml file from your ../includes/xml folder.
• Import the product into vBulletin using the ACP Product Manager.
• Set your required permissions in the usergroup manager.

Note that by default no usergroup permissions are given, you must set them.


You can get an improved Spiders Definition file from this post - and now a more recent version is available from this site.

Note: For Spider detection to work you must set Enable Spider Display to 'Yes' in vBulletin Options > Who's Online Options.


History:

v3.7.001 : Initial vb 3.7 release.
v3.7.002 : Fix for cron_script hook changed in 3.7 Beta 4.
v3.7.003 : Header, Navbar and Footer added to guest display pages.
v3.7.004 : Tracking of visits to archive pages added.

[KURTZ]

Originally Posted by ArnyVee

What's today's update?

v3.7.004 : Tracking of visits to archive pages added.

[EvilJohn]

Thanks for the update! Installed

[cmedic101]

Great Mod.....Works perfect with 3.71

thank you for your hard work

cmedic101

[kurtbarker]

with allthe guest information that is logged, where can I view it. It was somewhere in the ACP or is it a file?

[Joey805]

I had to temporarily uninstall this because it was conflicting with another plugin I had but now all my spiders in Who's online show up as guests. Why would this be? My spiders_vbulletin.xml still has all my entries in it. But everyone of them shows up as a guest.

[peterpigman]

Works very well but it made my server cry, had to remove it as my figures doubled

[KURTZ]

Originally Posted by Joey805

I had to temporarily uninstall this because it was conflicting with another plugin I had but now all my spiders in Who's online show up as guests. Why would this be? My spiders_vbulletin.xml still has all my entries in it. But everyone of them shows up as a guest.

i think there is an issue: i don't know if this hack caused something ... however HERE i've got a feed-back from Jelsoft ...

[KURTZ]

OK i'm back, i just made some tests onto my boards, then i can say this:

it's really weird ... but now it seems to be correct (but i need more testing)

if you have changed the spiders.xml BEFORE upgrade this hack you must uninstall this hack and you also must put the default spiders.xml, then you can re-install this hack, see if it detects correctly the main spiders (like google or yahoo!) and after that you can put the dream's .xml ...

if you install this hack with dream's or default spiders.xml enabled magically all the spiders lose their name (so you can't catch them onto WOL or guests display) ... so we must re-upload the spiders file (dream's or default it's the same) again ...

also i've tried onto a fresh board WITHOUT this hack, i've only substitute the default .xml with dream's and it didn't recognize the new spiders (like snapshots), so i take the default .xml and i've only added manually the snapshots ident, then i saw if this runs and i can get the snapbot onto WOL ... yes it runs, now it recognized the new spiders, then and finally i've re-changed the default .xml with dream's file and it still recognized the new spiders ... after this i put Paul's hack onto my testing/fresh board and it runs ...

hope you can understand what i wrote

[Ryan Ashbrook]

Hey, Paul, after updating this plugin to 3.7.004 I started receiving the following error via AJAX Edit Post.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?>

<errors>

	<error><![CDATA['maxloggedin']]></error>

</errors>

obj has no properties
http://forums.ffcrystalcosmo.com/clientscript/vbulletin_global.js?v=372
Line 1725

(Note: I'm using the full formatted YUI and vBulletin Javascript files, not the minimized versions. However, this error appeared before I switched the JS files.)

I also have "Code Option" set to "Run Code on all pages"

I've temporarily disabled this plugin for now, however it is a nice plugin and will Enable it again when a patch is served.

[StepOnFrog]

Thanks for this Paul, I think you've created something that hasn't been recognised for its potential in Spamming Prevention...!

This MOD actually logs activities performed on the registration page, and it is here where SpamBots fail the CAPTCHA image process. What I've proposed on vBulletin.com, and requested as a MOD in the Unpaid Mod Requests section on here (I know, I'm skint!) is something that places all new registrations into a table, and from there, the new users can be marked as spammers (for moderation on their posts), or moved into the memberlist should they succeed the registration process.

Your MOD --> Track Guest Visits <-- has a lot more potential than just tracking guests.

Track Guest Visits is my new piece of heavy duty Get Stuffed Spammer kit.

Seriously, it truely is great work.!