Anonymous Analytics

[Alfagun74]

To understand how people use GameVault better, we could track anonymous data both in the backend and on the frontend. This means we can collect information to see what parts of the software needs improving and which features users like the most.

The Microsoft Store gives us some basic numbers, but they're not very detailed.

We'll make sure users can choose to turn off this tracking if they want to.

Here are some examples of the information we could collect:

• When and for how long people are using GameVault actively. (This could help us decide when to release updates.)
• How many games users have, what types they are, and which platforms they're on. (This could help us make GameVault run better.)
• Popular preferences like whether users use SQLITE or Postgres, or if they have Auto-Extract turned on. (This could help us make default settings easier to understand.)
• Which parts of our user interface are used a lot and which ones aren't. (This could help us focus on adding new features, removing unused ones, and improving the ones that work well.)
• Hardware Stats ( For example for Performance Optimization )

We currently use swetrix.com for website analytics. I believe we can also use their API to track data in these services.

Backend: https://github.com/Swetrix/swetrix-node
Client: https://docs.swetrix.com/events-api

To-Do:

Settings

• Implement Settings Toggle (Default On): "Send anonymous usage reports to Phalcode to help us improve your experience."
• Toggle should disable any analytics
• Get IP Address of user on app startup: (string pubIp = new System.Net.WebClient().DownloadString("https://api.ipify.org");)

Heartbeat

• The GameVault App sends a Heartbeat every 30 Seconds
  • Request:
    POST https://analytics.platform.phalco.de/log/hb

    {"pid":"N2kuL4i8qmOQ"}

  • Headers:
    User-Agent: Gamevault/13.0.0 (like everywhere else)
    X-Client-IP-Address: Ip Adress of the user.
• Fire and forget. Ignore response.

Log Page Views

• The App should log a page-view event on every visual view it opens. (e.g. GameView, LibraryView, GameSettings)
  • Request:
    POST https://analytics.platform.phalco.de/log

    {
      "pid":"N2kuL4i8qmOQ",
      "tz": "Europe/Berlin", //Timezone of the user, as IANA Time Zone Database identifier like (Europe/Berlin) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones)
      "pg": "/library", //Imaginary page structure the User is on / is the root (e.g. /library, /game, /settings, /settings/data, /community/user-settings/, etc.)
      "prev": "/library", // Previous page the user was on. When switching from /library to /game this is /library
      "lc": "en-US", // Locale of the user (IETF language tag standard)
    }

  • Headers:
    User-Agent: Gamevault/13.0.0 (like everywhere else)
    X-Client-IP-Address: Ip Adress of the user.
  • Fire and forget. Ignore response.

Log Button Clicks

• The App should track all button click events by using a global eventlistener and some sort of id like automation ID
  • Request:
    POST https://analytics.platform.phalco.de/log/custom

    {
      "pid":"N2kuL4i8qmOQ",
      "ev": "click_Window.MainGrid.MainPanel.SubmitButton" // Visualtreepath of the button. 
      "tz": "Europe/Berlin", //Timezone of the user, as IANA Time Zone Database identifier like (Europe/Berlin) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones)
      "pg": "/library", //Imaginary page structure the User is on / is the root (e.g. /library, /game, /settings, /settings/data, /community/user-settings/, etc.)
      "lc": "en-US", // Locale of the user (IETF language tag standard)
    }

  • Headers:
    User-Agent: Gamevault/13.0.0 (like everywhere else)
    X-Client-IP-Address: Ip Adress of the user.
  • Fire and forget. Ignore response.

Log Custom Events

• The App should track specific custom events with some metadata that are useful to our work. for example:
  • Request:
    POST https://analytics.platform.phalco.de/log/custom

    {
      "pid":"N2kuL4i8qmOQ",
      "ev": "game_download" // custom event name
      "tz": "Europe/Berlin", //Timezone of the user, as IANA Time Zone Database identifier like (Europe/Berlin) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones)
      "pg": "/library", //Imaginary page structure the User is on / is the root (e.g. /library, /game, /settings, /settings/data, /community/user-settings/, etc.)
      "lc": "en-US", // Locale of the user (IETF language tag standard)
      "meta": {size: "21252521", game_type: "PORTABLE_WIN"} // js object with anything we need. ONLY STRING VALUES ALLOWED!
    }

  • Headers:
    User-Agent: Gamevault/13.0.0 (like everywhere else)
    X-Client-IP-Address: Ip Adress of the user.
  • Fire and forget. Ignore response.

Events we need

Implemented	Event	Tracking Name	Metadata to track
No	Start App	APP_INITIALIZED	App Settings, Hardware Info.
No	Load Installed Games	INSTALLED_GAMES_LOADED	Count of Installed games, Row Count
No	Load Server Games	SERVER_GAMES_LOADED	Count of total server games
No	Filter Games	SEARCH_FILTERS_CHANGED	All Filters Used
No	Start Download	GAME_DOWNLOAD_STARTED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Abort Download	GAME_DOWNLOAD_ABORTED	Game Size, Game Type, Download Progress
No	Pause Download	GAME_DOWNLOAD_PAUSED	Game Size, Game Type, Download Progress
No	Resume Download	GAME_DOWNLOAD_RESUMED	Game Size, Game Type, Download Progress
No	Finish Download	GAME_DOWNLOAD_COMPLETED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Start Extraction	GAME_EXTRACTION_STARTED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Abort Extraction	GAME_EXTRACTION_ABORTED	Game Size, Game Type, Extraction Progress
No	Finish Extraction	GAME_EXTRACTION_COMPLETED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Start Installation	GAME_INSTALLATION_STARTED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Finish Installation	GAME_INSTALLATION_COMPLETED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Start Uninstallation	GAME_UNINSTALLATION_STARTED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Finish Uninstallation	GAME_UNINSTALLATION_COMPLETED	Game Size, Game Type
No	Set A Games Progress (for you or somebody else)	PROGRESS_CHANGED	State
No	Switch Community Profile	COMMUNITY_PROFILE_VIEWED	Opened Users Id
No	Change Community Sorting	COMMUNITY_SORTING_CHANGED	Sorting Option
No	Load Metadata Providers	METADATA_PROVIDERS_LOADED	List of used Providers and their priorities
No	Search Metadata Provider for Remap	METADATA_SEARCHED	Provider Slug
No	Map Metadata	METADATA_MAPPED	Provider Slug
No	Unmap Metadata	METADATA_UNMAPPED	Provider Slug
No	Change Provider Priority	METADATA_PRIORITY_CHANGED	Provider Slug, Priority

Track Errors

Swetrix also supports Error tracking!

• Clarify together whether we replace or extend the current Phalcode Discord Webhook Error Handler
• If Analytics Setting is enabled or Send Crashlog is on, send all unhandled client exceptions to:
  • Request:
    POST https://analytics.platform.phalco.de/error

     {
         "pid": "N2kuL4i8qmOQ",
         "name": ex.GetType().Name,
         "message": ex.Message, (max 2000 characters.)
         "lineno": new System.Diagnostics.StackTrace(ex, true).GetFrame(0)?.GetFileLineNumber() ?? 0,
         "filename": new System.Diagnostics.StackTrace(ex, true).GetFrame(0)?.GetFileName() ?? "unknown",
         "tz": "Europe/Berlin", //Timezone of the user, as IANA Time Zone Database identifier like (Europe/Berlin) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones)
         "pg": "/library", //Imaginary page structure the User is on / is the root (e.g. /library, /game, 
         "lc": "en-US", // Locale of the user (IETF language tag standard)
    }

  • Headers:
    User-Agent: Gamevault/13.0.0 (like everywhere else)
    X-Client-IP-Address: Ip Adress of the user.
• Fire and forget. Ignore response.