Track Page activity?

[Kenster18]

Does anyone know how to track activity by a user. I would like to collect stats on what pages were viewed and for how long. Can the information collected be sent as a separate file?

Ken

[pabloko]

you can get click event and position using user32.dll and save the data into a database, you can create other app to view a heatmap, divide the app in rows and columns and count clicks on each cell, now, paint of colors with measure in average to the most clicked cell

[longedge]

Is the application going to be used in a 'closed' environment i.e. by users on the same network/domain. If so it's easy to write to a log file and append the data to a text file. I've tried this out in the past just to see how it worked and there were no problems that I could see. I collected date, time and user name when the application was opened but you could 'fire' code to do this on any event really. If you have multiple users at the same time then you might run into problems with file locking.

If the users aren't all on the same network then you can still do the same thing but using a web server but obviously it depends on the user have an active connection, which you can test for before firing the code.

One *very* important point - be open and honest about what you are doing and tell the user what is happening. Give them an opt out and implement it. If you don't, sooner or later it will get out and you're reputation will be destroyed.

[Kenster18]

The data collection is all above board and with full discloser.

Two questions then:

1) How do I create the log file to collect the data?
2) How do I send the information once it is collected.

Thanks for your patience and help in advance.

Ken

[longedge]

Is this on a network?

[Kenster18]

Not on a network. The project is sent out as an exe

[longedge]

Ok - in that case I guess the best option is a mix of html and server side php to collect the info and save it to your web server, but that isn't my forte (if I have one at all that is). Perhaps someone else will pick up on this.......

[Kenster18]

I apprceiate the insight.

Ken