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.

[Paul M]

Thats some sort of mysql problem/bug - it should be impossible to get a duplicate key error using RELACE INTO - the whole point is that it updates the found key - I would suggest you run a repair on the guest table, it may be corrupt in some way.

[voter]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Thats some sort of mysql problem/bug - it should be impossible to get a duplicate key error using RELACE INTO - the whole point is that it updates the found key - I would suggest you run a repair on the guest table, it may be corrupt in some way.

Sure the reason was corrupted guest table, and after repairing SQL everything is ok.
My thought was to find a way to escape such a situation again.

I think the scenario is - during database backup, which is hard staff for server, the REPLACE comes and mysql starts to writes the data, but it do not mark it as finished and send any answer to your script for a long time and same request comes once more. Then one have same REPLACE query doubble in query.

[Paul M]

Replace just does an Insert, or Delete & Insert if the key exists.

If vb3.7 required mysql 4.1 or above then I could look at the "Insert ... On Duplicate Key Update" for the 3.7 version - however it only required 4.0.16 or above, this version needs to run on any mysql 4.0.x (and even mysql 3.xx) as well.

[fpattberg]

Hello.

I know that there is limited support on this plugin now but I have had the situation that suddenly (since yesterday) somehow there are now spiders shown next to my regular visitors.

My site: http://www.sustainabilityforum.com/forum

Has anyone an idea why that could be the case? Have I missed something? Are there no more spiders visiting my site?

I am using 3.6.7 PL1 but that should not be a problem right?

Please help.

Thanks.

Fabian

[Paul M]

Maybe your spiders cache has got corrupted, try running this and then waiting a few hours ;

[sql]DELETE FROM datastore WHERE title = 'wol_spiders'[/sql]

[fpattberg]

Okay.

I am getting a not allowed message. Do I have to get permission from my hosting provider?

In the vbseo forum they said that I had a robots.txt problem.
But I have no robots.txt on my ftp root and still it shows up:
http://www.sustainabilityforum.com/robots.txt

What is wrong with this?

Please help.

Thanks.
Fabian

[Dean C]

Hi,

Just installed this. Does it take a few hours to begin showing on the forumhome? I installed it, checked everything was turned on in the vB options and the block isn't showing up on forumhome. Note: I am running a completely stock vBulletin style.

Ack: permissions for admin were all set to no Nm

[Philster]

Dean, have you enabled spider display and guests in 'who's online' options of your admincp? Also have you ftp'd the latest spider.xml file to your forum?

Phil.

[Welshy2008]

Great Hack - Thank You Paul.

[ggregg13]

how do l do this exacly lam new to this Upload the bitfields file to your ../includes/xml folder thanks ggregg13