Forum Home Enhancements - Track Guest Visits

This modification is no longer available or supported.

Something that has been repeatedly asked in the "Members who visited today" modifications (all versions) is a similar way to track 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. I've therefore finally got round to looking at the issue and produced this modification.

This will add (another) section to the "What's Going On" area. The data is kept in a new table so it should be possible for other uses to be made of it (or display it in other ways). A screenshot of the current display is attached.

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].

Version 1.19+

* 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 now done with the standard vbulleten usergroup permissions system.

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.


Version 1.22+

The option to keep a record of [and display] the most ever guests has been added - this used to be provided by a seperate add-on product.


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

To install ;

• Unzip the XML files.
• Upload the bitfields file to your ../includes/xml folder.
• Import the product into vB using the ACP Product Manager.
• Set your required permissions in the usergroup manager.

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

You can get an improved Spiders Definition file, that recognises many more spiders, from this post.

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

A German translation has been provided by hurik in post #769 - (for Version 1.22).


History:

v1.00 : Internal dev version.
v1.01 : Initial vb 3.6 beta release.
v1.02 : Phrasing added, final beta version.
v1.03 : Initial full version, some new options added.
v1.04 : Fix potential variable name clash with WVT Mod.
v1.05 : More options added, script and request variable logging added.
v1.06 : Minor internal code changes, phrasing altered slightly.
v1.07 : Datastore call changed to standard fetch function.
v1.08 : Moved Datastore call due to oddities, and fixed small bug.
v1.09 : Simplified always collapsed code.
v1.10 : Datastore call moved and reverted back to db_fetch.
v1.11 : Added Spider Cache Refresh on install (limited release).
v1.12 : Unique Guest id changed from standard vb id to internally created id.
v1.13 : Changed the SQL to force MySQL to use the index on forumhome.
v1.14 : Changed install code to delete old spider cache before rebuilding it.
v1.15 : Added check to try and detect a broken spider cache and fix it.
v1.16 : Number formatting added to individual totals in display list.
v1.17 : New usergroup display options added, datastore read updated.
v1.18 : Beta for new display options - listing guests and tracking guest views.
v1.19 : First release with the new permissions and display options.
v1.20 : Minor changes to install code only.
v1.21 : Internal development version, not released.
v1.22 : Added the "Most ever guests" option.

[GrendelKhan{TSU]

Originally Posted by Shazz

IMO, hasen't effected performance in any way,
I have seen this on low quality servers running well

good to know.

but to be clear, by the way you are saying that... theoretically...it COULD (like if you didn't have a great server or shared hosting)? is that correct? I mean its not running any queries but maybe effects server load?

just so ppl know though, I'm really just guess here.

[Paul M]

Any modification will theoretically affect performance.

This does not have any noticeable effect that I'm aware of. I don't know why you think it isn't running any queries though - it does - it would be hard to store any data in it's table otherwise.

[dbirosel]

<i>Suggestion:</i> I don't want too many mods on my forum, so i was wondering if you can somehow integrate the number of members on this hack?

Example:

Members (13), Visitors (29), Yahoo! Slurp Spiders (15), MSNBot Spiders (3), Google Spiders (1)

Thanks!!!!

[Paul M]

Sorry, this is a mod purely for tracking guest counts.

[inciarco]

Great Add-On Paul M!! :up:

It'd be Great if you could make it more Flexible by including the possibility to select the number of Hours, to be able to choose a different number than 24 hours!! :up:

Like in the Add-On Cyb - Visitors in Last X Hours, where Cybernetec made it possible to choose a different number than 24 hours for the Visits!! :up:

Thank You Very Much!! Works Great in vb3.6.5; I hope you can make it more Flexible, to choose more than 24 hours!! :up:

[GrendelKhan{TSU]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Any modification will theoretically affect performance.

This does not have any noticeable effect that I'm aware of. I don't know why you think it isn't running any queries though - it does - it would be hard to store any data in it's table otherwise.

i see. thank you for your response.

<< upgrade installed

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by inciarco

Thank You Very Much!! Works Great in vb3.6.5; I hope you can make it more Flexible, to choose more than 24 hours!! :up:

I'm sure I could look at this at some point, but I'm not convinced that many people would make use of such an option, what other number would you want, and why ?

[karlm]

As in my last psot on this thread, I said the same asinciarco - i think it woul dbe gr8 to offer the flexibility so the hours can be set in the acp. this way, it could be pulled inline with other hacks which monitor members in the last x hours.other than that, it's a fantastic tool.

[Skavenger]

Hi, is there any way to integrate with this mod?
I want to show the number of guests in the other hack

[inciarco]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I'm sure I could look at this at some point, but I'm not convinced that many people would make use of such an option, what other number would you want, and why ?

I'd like to know for example How Many Guests have visited my Forums in the last 168 Hours ( Days), because my Forums are just starting and don't have much Visitors yet. (24 Hours will show few Visitors, and could be better to show more in 168 Hours than less in 24 Hours)!! :up:

Any other addition and Information would be great, but I'd only like Flexibility in choosing how many Hours will the Information last in the Table that stores the Data!! :up:

(Perhaps in Addition you could provide a Table with the Details of Information os the Visitors, like the IP, the Day and Hour of the Visit, like in the /online.php?who=guests page, because that Information would be the one you need to store and also delete after some determinate Hours greater than the number of hours specified for Counting the Visits, to keep track of the Guests that have Visited the Forums)!!

Edit: (Perhaps another Addition could be to present the Maximum Number of Visitors, Daily, and also in the Chosen Period of Time, and the Day that It Happened; that Information can be obtained based on the Periodic Counts made by the Add-On)!!

My Best Regards To You, Paul M!! :up:

Thank You Very Much For Your Message!! :up: