i found this answer in some threads here in stackoverflow https://stackoverflow.com/a/8692559, But my reputation is not enough to comment. Here is my question, does google analytic track still work if I set the Meta Refresh to 0 http://example.com/"> ?
Or should I use this method https://stackoverflow.com/a/8692588/3068292 instead of the above code?
If you use async code, you probably refresh before the codes actually fires.
Because async wait till the page is loaded to get executed. since there's no time after end-of-execution and new request, your track will be lost (at least, most of the time).
The wait sync works is that the page is not loaded until it load and fires the javascript with a response. This way, by the time it reach the refresh, all the tracking has been done.
Related
What I am trying to do is to redirect the user to the next page right after sending an event to Google Analytics:
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'xxx' ...]);
window.location = 'some url ...';
The above code manages to register events because I can see them in the GA report. However I suspect that some events were lost because the browser redirects the user to the new page before the track pixel loads.
My questions are:
Does _gaq.push() block until the event has successfully reached Google's server?
If not, what is the best way to make achieve what I need?
Thanks!
Google has a support page that says you might want to add a delay after calling _gac.push, however they claim that this is to give the Google Analytics JavaScript a chance to load. They don't say that it's to ensure the request is sent.
First, delay the outbound click by a fraction of a second.
This delay will hardly be noticeable by the user, but it will provide the browser more time load the tracking code. Without this method, it's possible that a user can click on the outbound link before the tracking code loads, in which case the event will not be recorded.
I haven't checked #pixelfreak's claim of handling onbeforeunload, but it seems that's what they do.
This is my observation based on some quick research. That function is part of Google Analytic's asynchronous API, so it should not block anything, otherwise, it's not async. :)
Digging through the obfuscated ga.js, you can kinda see that the tracking is probably called onbeforeunload, which fires when you leave a page.
It really doesn't matter if the tracking pixel loads completely, it's a fire & forget. As long as the request is initiated and reaches Google's server, it'll get tracked. The response (in this case, the pixel image) is a by-product.
Maybe you can try this method, but I have not tried
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'xxx' ...]);
_gaq.push(function(){location.reload()});
Just use 1 sec delay. Like this:
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'xxx' ...]);
setTimeout(function(){window.location = 'some_url'}, 1000);
In the past, when I've covered events, I've used a meta-refresh with a 5 minute timer to refresh the page so people have the latest updates.
Realizing that this may not be the perfect way to do it (doesn't always work in IE, interrupts a person's flow, restarts things for people with screen readers, etc.) I'm wondering if there's any other way to do handle this situation.
Is it possible to have something like ajax check every few minutes if the html file on the server is newer and have it print a message saying "Update info available, click here to refresh"?
If that's crazy, how about a javascript that just counts down from 5 minutes and just suggests a refresh.
If anyone could point me to tutorials or code snippets I'd appreciate. I just play a programmer on TV. :-)
Actually, your thought on a timed Ajax test is an excellent idea. I'm not sure that is exactly what StackOverflow uses, but it checks periodically to see if other answers have been posted and shows the user, on an interval, if there are updates.
I think this is ideal for these reasons:
It's unobtrusive - the reader can easily ignore the update if they don't care
It won't waste bandwith - no reloading unless the user chooses to
It's informative - the user knows there's an update and can choose to act on it.
My take on how - have the ajax script send off the latest post id to a script that checks for new scripts. This script can query your database to see if there are any new posts, and how many there are. It can return this number. If there are new posts, show some (non modal) message including the number of updates, and let the user decide what to do about it.
setInterval(function() {
if (confirm("Its Been 5 Minutes. Would you like to refresh")) {
window.location.reload(true);
//Or instead of refreshing the page you could make an ajax call and determing if a newer page exists. IF one does then reload.
}
}, 300000);
You can use the setInterval function in javascript.
here's a sample
setInterval("refresh function", milliseconds, lang);
You will use it passing a name to a function that actually refresh the page for the first param and the number of milliseconds between refresh for the second param (300000 for 5 minutes). The third parameter lang is optional
If the user would be interacting with the scores and clicking on things it would be a little rude to just refresh the page on them. I think doing something like a notification that the page has been updated would be ideal.
I would use jQuery and do an ajax call to the file on the server or something that will return the updated data. If it's newer than throw up a Growl message
Gritter - jQuery Growl System
Demo of what a Growl is using Gritter
A Growl message would come up possibly with whatever was changed, new scores and then an option within that message to refresh and view the new results.
jQuery Ajax information
To use Google Analytics, you put some JavaScript code in your web page which will make an asynchronous request to Google when the page loads.
From what I have read, this shouldn't block or slow down page load times if you include it directly before the end of your HTML Body. To verify this, I want to make the request after some period of time. The user should be able to log into my site regardless of the time it takes for the request to Google or if it comes back at all (the tracking code is on the login page).
There is a 'pageTracker._trackPageview()' function call in the Google Tracking code. Is this where the request is sent to Google?
If so, should I just do:
window.setTimeout(pageTracker._trackPageview(), 5000);
any help is appreciated, especially if you have worked with Google Analytics and have this same problem.
window.setTimeout(pageTracker._trackPageview(), 5000); will call the code immediately - what you want is
window.setTimeout(function() { pageTracker._trackPageview(); }, 5000);
This should work:
window.setTimeout(pageTracker._trackPageview, 5000);
That should do it. Put some quotes around the call:
window.setTimeout("pageTracker._trackPageview()", 5000);
You can check this using Firebug if you want to see the request go through.
What would be the best way to display an animation while waiting for server-side processing of a jsp page to complete.Basically, the server side request can take more than a minute to process and until then I would like the user to have some way to get an update of how his request is getting along.I require an animated gif and a line stating that x% has been completed.
One of the methods I came across while surfing the net was to have an intermediate page that shows the animation while loading the actual page using javascript (location.href).So ,I figure use a couple of ajax calls from the intermediate page to a servlet to get the feedback.Problem is it works fine in IE 6/7 and Firefox 3.But the ajax callbacks dont seem to be getting executed in case of Chrome and Opera (The location.href part seems to mess it up and the callbacks never get executed).
If this approach is flawed how should I go about it?.And if not how can i fix this issue?
Thanks in advance
The simple way I've done this is to go to a JSP that displays a "X % completed" page (image, whatever) that reloads periodically. And when the request is complete, it redirects to an appropriate page to indicate completion. A lot simpler than AJAX, if not as fancy, and requires nothing that is browser-specific.
Try window.location='URL'. Also document.location='URL' works, but I think is deprecated.
Also to be opinionated I do think that a non-reloading web page is much saucier than just being forwarded.
My site uses the Google Maps API. In situations where the connection to Google is slow and the map can't be rendered in a reasonable time, I'd like a Javascript callback method to be called such that I can display a useful message to the user rather than have a 'loading...' message constantly displayed.
Is this achievable?
Maybe you could have a sleep function that would check if the page has loaded yet, and after a certain time you take some sort of action.
See this posting for a situation similar to yours
setTimeout might be useful too.
so, you would have:
setTimeout((function()
{ /* test if the page is loaded,
if so, call another function
or set a flag to get out*/
}),2000); //set for 2 seconds