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Google Analytics Bridge for Android developers

23 ago

Google Analytics Bridge is a java library for android ( Soon to be Open Source licensed ) that will help developers understand what the user interaction with their own application.

Google Analytics Bridge is really easy to setup and it runs on a separate thread. This is do to the problem with the internet request sometime freezing the UI and setting off the hated message:

"The Application xyz is not responing"

With the two choises :

  1. Force Close
  2. Wait

Since The Google Analytics Bridge runs on a different thread to avoid this error.

First Setup

Download and import the jar file to the application you want use the Google Analytics Bridge on. The setup is a fast one-line command but you need the following information:

  • Google Analytics Tracking Code ( EX: "UA-123123123-1" )
  • The Domain Name

Set up a brand new Google Analytics Profile

you will need to set up a new Google Analytics Profile or use an existing one. You will need to open a new website profile on google analytics.

The procedure is fast and simple but it does require The domain name.

In that field you can specify whatever you want, but i suggest something like:

track.your-application-name.com

After creating the new profile, copy the UA-XXXXXX-Y code for a further usage.

The Constructor

Once you've done all of step one it's time to create our constructor.

In the onCreate routine place the following code:

PLAIN TEXT
JAVA:
  1. new AnalyticsBridge(this.getApplicationContext(),"UA-XXXXXX-Y","track.your-application-name.com");

You don't need to create an AnalyticsBridge object , after this line you will call the methods in a static way.

NOTE: You should call the constructor once per application lifetime.

Public Methods

_trackPageview(String pageTitle)

If you've some experience integrating google analytics on your own website you'll also remember what this method will do.

_trackPageview method on the web it's used for logging a new page View by the user. Similarly calling this static method on android will generate a google analytics request that will log a new Activity View.

Lets say you've a lot of activity, and some of theese will show the same content but in a different way, then i would put the following code on each onCreate Subroutine:

PLAIN TEXT
JAVA:
  1. /** Called when the activity is first created. */
  2. @Override
  3. public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  4. super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
  5. setContentView(R.layout.main);
  6.  
  7. AnalyticsBridge._trackPageview(this.getClass().getName());
  8.  
  9. }

This code will log each opened activity to google analytics.. Isn't it easy? :)

_trackEvent(String category, String action)

_trackEvent method is the same used on the web google analytics apis. I made this bridge because you should want to track some event made by the user.

Let suppouse you want to track a button click event on your user interface - this could help you understand how the user interact with your user interface - then you simply write the following statement on your View.OnClickListener implementation:

PLAIN TEXT
JAVA:
  1. Button loginbutton=new Button();
  2. loginbutton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
  3.  
  4. @Override
  5. public void onClick(View v) {
  6. AnalyticsBridge._trackEvent("Click", "Login Button");
  7.  
  8. }
  9. });

That code will track the event of category "Click" and action "login Button".

Download:

Right now the library is quite stable . You can download it here

Thanks

Thanks to barakinflorida who corrected my bad english :)

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5 Comments

Posted in Programmazione

 

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  1. Tracciare le applicazioni nei telefonini Android · Google Analytics in 30 secondi

    settembre 14, 2009 at 9:37 am

    [...] Andrea Baccega ha invece realizzato un “ponte” tra le applicazioni Android e Google Analytics, che consentirà agli sviluppatori Android di avere una libreria pronta da includere nelle loro applicazioni per tracciare cosa e quanto fanno gli utenti mentre le utilizzano. La libreria ha due metodi _trackPageview e _trackEvent che possono essere usati ad esempio per tracciare pannelli e pulsanti delle applicazioni, per sapere quante persone usano un certo pulsante su una certa “pagina”, oppure per recuperare informazioni sulle opzioni scelte dentro all’applicazione. Le istruzioni per l’utilizzo e il download si trovano sul blog di Andrea, e non le riporto qui. Il mio consiglio, qualora voleste cimentarvi nell’integrazione, è di specificare a chiare lettere prima e durante l’utilizzo (magari con una finestra di dialogo obbligatoria al primo utilizzo, ove premere OK e RIFIUTO) che la vostra applicazione traccerà in modo anonimo i dati di utilizzo. [...]

     

  2. Statistiche delle vostre applicazioni - Forum Android Italiano

    febbraio 2, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    [...] questo post diventi lunghissimo lascio il link alla mia documentazione in inglese sul mio blog. Google Analytics Bridge for Android developers | Baccega Andrea seo blog | android, google, google a… __________________ I [...]

     

  3. mobile news reader

    luglio 23, 2010 at 8:39 am

    this is great, I’ll try to implement it in a webview of an application for my site, thanks for sharing.

     

  4. Andrea Baccega

    luglio 23, 2010 at 8:43 am

    hi mobile news reader, this library is good but google has developed his own google analytics library, maybe you would like to implement that instead of this :P

    Btw, in the webview you could use the standard js library

     

  5. mobile news reader

    luglio 23, 2010 at 9:05 am

    Hi andrea and thanks for the info, I’ll look around and try to find it, and probably go with it.

     
 

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