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.

[Adem GEN?]

Thanks
ok

[Zaiaku]

Someone has been busy. Thx

[KURTZ]

oh yes Paul!!!!!

[JAuthement]

Thanks Paul for porting this over to 3.7

[Mutt]

I've never used this mod. How is it on a very large board? I love the idea but worry my traffic might be too much for it. any input would be appreciated. thanks

FYI - we get approx 20 million page views a month

[Paul M]

The data collection uses a simple sql insert/replace per guest, the forumhome display uses one select - the table is indexed. I dont see why it would cause any issues. The only way to be sure is try it.

[Barakat]

works good .....

[projectego]

Thanks very much, Paul.

[KidCharlemane]

Nevermind... sucks to think youre working on one forum and realize youre actually uploading files to another by mistake.