User tracking mod

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Originally Posted by Phil S

I updated to 1.5.4 and reinstalled this and now I'm not being told where my visitors are coming from. Every Originating URL is showing as having come from one of my store pages with the only exception being traffic from Google.

I had posted a link to a special in one of the forums I subscribe to and when I went in and edited the link by adding src=wxyz.com, that showed up in the originating URL.

Has something changed since I used this in 1.3?

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A lot about the internet, php, and servers has changed; however, the underlying code to identify the applicable information in this mod have not been updated yet. The underlying code to provide the results for this plugin was built on early whos_online code. That code has changed and needs to be incorporated into the plugin. Something on "my list" but hasn't made it to the forefront. The display/interface has been updated but the code obtaining the results has not... Yet...

I'm going to guess that I was using a VERY old version that I did not update when I moved to version 1.3.9 5 years ago This addon was one of the first things I re-installed when I upgraded to 1.5. It was preceded only by the UPS and USPS addons.

The ability to be able to see which forum is delivering traffic to my store is more important to me than seeing where they go once there. I can get around that by adding the src=wxyz.com when I post a link but I really appreciated the ability to see traffic generated when someone else does too. It was also a nice heads-up when I'd find traffic coming from discussions in sites I had never visited. That was usually followed up by an explanation if someone posted a problem or a sale if someone praised a product or service.

Hopefully this will be bumped up the priority list. I'm not adverse to offering a shameless bribe donation for it's rapid implementation. (grin)

I will say this, priorities do get set as a result of needing to meet a commitment.

I will say that I have the plugin installed on a ZC 1.5.3 system and it has for the most part provided the source of the visitor, but at the same time have seen cases where it appears that the visitor started at the site (could it be that the link is copied and pasted into the browser instead of clicked on? Maybe) but it could also be the various settings of the two hosts (site with the link and the site visited). Regardless I know the collection code is more than likely outdated. Like most plugins, I had a need to use this and saw some ways that the data presentation could be improved and at the time I had little knowledge of the ZC workings, but was willing to set out to try to make it better/keep it alive. :) I *do* want it to get updated... ;)

"Shameless bribe" above was supposed to have a strike-through as opposed to being underlined. That completely changes the tone of my message. Whoops!

I have to wonder if it's something different between 1.5.3 and 1.5.4 as I'm only seeing a referrer when traffic comes from Google or another search site.

Is there any good reason to update to the most recent User Tracking update v1.5.2? I have been using the 2nd most recent update v1.5 not the newest update v1.5.2 . It looks like there are quite a few changes to some files. Thank you.

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Is there any good reason to update to the most recent User Tracking update v1.5.2?

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Good question.

I have just spent some time working on the 1.5.08 version over the last couple of weeks and didn't notice a newer one had been posted since I started...new uploads should be accompanied by a post in the relevant thread for exactly this reason!

The plugin page only mentions a change to the sql install but in fact there are lot of significant changes to the previous version such as changing $db->prepare_input to addslashes (why?), the removal of some (probably pointless) admin config options and quite a few other changes. None of this has been documented at all.
Perhaps the uploader of the changes corseter could chip in with some information here to explain the improvements...

And another question...what is the point of the user_tracking_config.php file in the admin? Seems redundant, nothing uses it.

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Originally Posted by tom97zr2

Is there any good reason to update to the most recent User Tracking update v1.5.2? I have been using the 2nd most recent update v1.5 not the newest update v1.5.2 . It looks like there are quite a few changes to some files. Thank you.

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So, it wasn't really an "upgrade" but a return to an earlier version with a "new" new_user_tracking.sql file... More than likely from yet an even older version... (Sorry, not going to chase down the exact age of the content seeing that the only three discrepancies between version 1.5.2 and version 1.4.2 is that
1) a zip file of flags exists. (BTW, the site suggested to access and obtain "better images" was found to have a virus when accessing which is why those images never got incorporated... I have not tried to unzip the zipped images or specifically scan the file.)
2) A sql file was included to identify that it is necessary to work with ZC 1.5.4 as the other (versions including the one posted in this forum) would not work with ZC 1.5.4.
3) The New_Install_Readme.txt file was updated in one sentence to indicate that ZC 1.5.4 requires the above "newly" generated sql file "required" by ZC 1.5.4.


Based on that, I personally would say no... It is essentially version 1.4.2 with a replaced/updated/new new_user_install.sql, which is not even close to the same as posted above, returns to hard coding the configuration_id to 999 (even though this could potentially conflict with some other program's choice to install with that value or after sufficient install/uninstall cycles that the configuration_id collides with that of User Tracking.) I didn't know either that there was a "new" version uploaded. There was no notification of a new update, besides the new user install needing incorporation from the forum as published above, I don't know of any specific fixes that were needed for ZC 1.5.4 compatibility. (Ie, worked just fine on a 1.5.4 website as written in version 1.5.08... Perhaps without some of the information that has been requested/asked about.)

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Originally Posted by torvista

Good question.

I have just spent some time working on the 1.5.08 version over the last couple of weeks and didn't notice a newer one had been posted since I started...new uploads should be accompanied by a post in the relevant thread for exactly this reason!

The plugin page only mentions a change to the sql install but in fact there are lot of significant changes to the previous version such as changing $db->prepare_input to addslashes (why?), the removal of some (probably pointless) admin config options and quite a few other changes. None of this has been documented at all.
Perhaps the uploader of the changes corseter could chip in with some information here to explain the improvements...

And another question...what is the point of the user_tracking_config.php file in the admin? Seems redundant, nothing uses it.

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From the above review, it was apparent that one of the old versions was used/maintained with non-zencart functionality used to "upgrade" to ZC 1.5.4. As to the user_tracking_config.php file, it was initially maintained in the package although its functionality was no longer supported by PHP. At one point someone had wanted to co-locate the user tracking tool and the user tracking configuration options and to accomplish that a version of the configuration.php file was made, but never updated as the ZC configuration.php file was upgraded... It is/was to be removed from the package on the next update including a significantly improved installation/upgrade process than recent; however, I hadn't provided any type of an update since end of 2013, as said, being overrun by other things.

...thanks for checking into that. I guessed it was as such but found it hard to believe that was the case. Very misleading.

I'll continue tinkering with mine and upload shortly...anything else this mod needs that you haven't got round to doing?

Short. List no particular order:
-Rework the collection of information so that it truly is able to differentiate between the spiders and the non-spiders (ie. Use more of the who's online structure and in particular so that as it gets updated, this can closely mirror it.)
-Add the move today/back/forward/today links to the bottom of the listing.
Incorporate buttons to select adjacent to ip addresses so as to: block ip/unblock ip so that the ip address gets added to the existing list of ip addresses rather than being just one more data point. Works/worked with the first rendition of block ip, but underlying structure of that program got modified.
-Figure out/correct why the admin tracking of information does not always display all information for that admin.
-Add an auto-delete function that will only delete items that are older than the delete periodicity without requiring the "user" to have cron jobs as an option with their host. Ie. Some form of date/time check that is not too resource intensive, if within the next check time period, then auto delete the day's information that is x-days older than the current delete cycle. The number of days possibly be some hard coded number factor or selectable by the store owner, but regardless not so that everything is deleted now always automatically.

Those are just a few of the things that I have/had on my plate for this besides correcting the new user install sql fiasco.I created nearly a year and a quarter ago and making the auto-installation script instead of manual sql commands.

Ohh and to add notification of a new version being available similar to the USPS mod.