DesktopAnalytics.net

Segment.IO provides a nice server-oriented library in Analytics.net. This project is just one little class that wraps that to provide some standard behavior needed by desktop applications:

• Supplies guids for user ids, saves that in a Settings file
• Looks up the machine's external IP address and sends that along
• Set $Browser to the Operating System Version (e.g. "Windows 8").
• Auto events
• First launch ("Create" to fit MixPanel's expectation)
• Version Upgrade

Install

PM> Install-Package DesktopAnalytics

Usage

Initialization

using (new Analytics("mySegmentIOSecret"), userInfo)
{
    // other setup, and eventually
    Application.Run();
}

If you want to go beyond anonymous users, you can feed information about your user into DA like this:

var userInfo = new UserInfo()
    {
        FirstName = "John",
        LastName = "Smith",
        Email="[email protected]",
        UILanguageCode= "fr"
    };
userInfo.OtherProperties.Add("FavoriteColor","blue");

using (new Analytics("mySegmentIOSecret"), userInfo)
{
    // other setup, and eventually
    Application.Run();
}

If you have a way of letting users (or testers) disable tracking, pass that value as the second argument:

using (new Analytics("mySegmentIOSecret", allowTracking))

In this example, we use an environment variable so that testers and developers don't get counted:

#if DEBUG
    //always track if this is a debug built, but track to a different segment.io project
    using (new Analytics("(the secret for the debug version)"))

#else
    // if this is a release build, then allow an envinroment variable to be set to false
    // so that testers aren't generating false analytics
    string feedbackSetting = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("FEEDBACK");

    var allowTracking = string.IsNullOrEmpty(feedbackSetting) || feedbackSetting.ToLower() == "yes" || feedbackSetting.ToLower() == "true";

    using (new Analytics("(the secret for the release version)", RegistrationDialog.GetAnalyticsUserInfo(), allowTracking))
    {
        // other setup, and eventually
        Application.Run();
    }

#endif

Tracking

Wherever you want to register that something happened, call Track on the static object named "Analytics":

Analytics.Track("Create New Image");

If you have properties you need to record, add them by passing in a Dictionary<string, string>, like this:

Analytics.Track("Save PDF", new Dictionary<string, string>() {
        {"PageCount",  pageCount},
        {"Layout", "A4Landscape"}
    });

Error Reporting

Analytics.ReportException(error);

If you've also got LibPalaso in your app, hook up its ExceptionHandler like this:

ExceptionHandler.AddDelegate((w,e) => DesktopAnalytics.Analytics.ReportException(e.Exception));

Dependencies

The project is currently built for .net 4 client profile. If you get the solution, nuget should auto-restore the two dependencies when you build; they are not part of the source tree.

License

MIT Licensed (As are the dependencies, Analytics.Net and Json.Net).

About Determining User's IP

DesktopAnalytics.net determines the user's ip by querying a website. Previously, it used ipecho.net, but that has gone down. It is currently using icanhazip.com. If that goes down too, we can change again. Your client can also use any other service you want by setting UrlThatReturnsExternalIpAddress.