I have a mobile site which completely runs using AJAX, and hash code, basically each page click is a link, such as
<a href='http://some-domain.com/my-page-122.php" hash-id='122'>linkage</a>
Meaning that the page itself exists and it has ON IT google analytics page, HOWEVER, on the ajax request, I only ask to load a certein <div> on said page using jQuery's load(), so my question is:
because the page is called for in it's entirety with the google analytics code and everything, will it still record it as a page view even though only a portion is injected to the page?
The reason why I'm asking is because this site is getting around 500 uniques per day, and we want to change it to this new AJAXy form, so not recording analytics is a big no-no.
If you use jQuery you can bind to the global AjaxComplete event to fire a Pageview everytime an Ajax call completes:
jQuery(document).ajaxComplete(function(e, xhr, settings){
var d = document.location.pathname + document.location.search + document.location.hash;
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', d]);
});
If you update the Anchor every time you do an Ajax call this will fire the full path including the anchor part of the url.
Note that if you load content using .load that has the Google Analytics Tracking code in it, it will run that code and fire a second pageview. So you want to make sure you don;t include the GATC on the ajax content to avoid double pageviews.
Analytics won't record it automatically. Assuming you're using the asynchronous code you can record as many pageviews as you want by writing to the gaq array using an explicitly set URL:
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-12345-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/home/landingPage']);
In this case you can build whatever URL you want where they have '/home/landingPage'. Note that if _gaq was already properly instantiated and _setAccount was already pushed then you only need to push the _trackPageview.
Also, the event can be in code returned by your AJAX, or it can be in the click event of your button or whatever is launching the AJAX request.
See http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApiBasicConfiguration.html#_gat.GA_Tracker_._trackPageview
Related
For a website, which doesn't use AJAX I'm using OnDocumentComplete event to know when the page loading is complete.
My question is, how can I detect when website, which uses AJAX requests is ready (e.g. when a website which is fetching some search results by using AJAX finished its work) ?
Ok here is a trick i developed my self.
1-in your html page make a div and set its text to "false".
2-in you server side put a javascript at the end of your returning code. for example your site returns following text upon an ajax call.
a
b
c
d
e
so after this text put a javascript code that will change the text of div from "false" to "true"
so what will happen is that once you receive all the data from ajax call you will also receive the javascript code and that code will run and set the value of div.
so in your page once all data is received you will see the indicator div. and you will know that you have received all data. you can also run functions in similar way upon completion of data.
I want to create a page with will be filled with dynamic info using Ajax (JQuery). The info will come from various GETs I need to do in other URLs.
I'll be using Sinatra + JQuery to to that, but as my WEB experience is almost null and don't have any idea how do to it right.
The requisites for this are:
Each time a GET completes, a new line of information should appear on the page.
If the GET could not be complete, a default info appear on the page.
My idea so far is to do something like this:
Have my controller performing each GET inside a thread.
Each time a thread ends, with success or not, I inform the view of the result and render a partial
I'll have as many partial as I need (for each GET I must do)
The first time I load the page I fill in the default info, them I update via AJAX with the successful GET responses
This does not seem the correct approach, so I'm asking someone that already did something similar or has more experience on this some help.
You start off with a simple get('/'){} route that holds the default message (or any other GET route). Then you have your other GET routes that you want to display on your default route. In Sinatra you can check whether a request is an xhr-request or not with a request.xhr? If you have an xhr request you return a json value to your view, otherwise reject the request or render a view with proper html. This is on your sinatra backend. In your views you can use JQuery or any other JS library or plain JS to handle asynchronous data requests. You can use the ajax function in JQuery to request data from your routes and then add them to your DOM. It's as simple as that :)
Now you will have to investigate on the JQuery site how to make ajax requests and how to append data to existing DOMs. That's all there is to it.
I'm confused as to how to accomplish this. I have a page which, has a popup filter, which has some input elements and an "Apply" button (not a submit). When the button is clicked, two jquery .get() calls are made, which load a graph, a DataTables grid, photos, and miscellaneous info into four separate tabs. Inside the graph, if one clicks on a particular element, the user is taken to another page where the data is drilled down to a finer level. All this works well.
The problem is if the user decides to go back to the original page, but with the ajax generated graph/grid/photos etc. Originally I thought that I would store a session variable with the filter variables used to form the original query, and on returning to the page, if the session var was found, the original ajax call would be made again, re-populating the tabs.
The problem that I find with this method is that Coldfusion doesn't recognize that the session variable has been set when returning to the page using the browser's back button. If I dump out the session var at both the original and the second page, I can see the newly set var at the second page, and I can see it if I go to the original page through the navigation menu, but NOT if I use the back button.
SO.... from reading posts on here about ajax browser history plugins, it seems that there are various jquery plugins which help with this, including BBQ. The problem that I see with this approach is that it requires the use of anchor elements to trigger it, and then modifies the query string using the anchors' href attributes. I suppose that I could modify the page to include a hidden anchor.
My question, at long last is: is an ajax history plugin like BBQ the best way to accomplish this, or is there a way to make Coldfusion see the newly created session var when returning to the page via the back button? Or, should I consider re-architecting the page so that the ajax calls are replaced by a form submission back to the page instead?
Thanks in advance, as always.
EDIT: some code to help clarify things:
Here's the button that makes the original ajax calls:
<button id="applyFilter">APPLY</button>
and part of the js called on #applyFilter, wrapped in $(document).ready():
$('#applyFilter').click(function(){
// fill in the Photos tab
$.get('tracking/listPhotos.cfm',
{
id: id,
randParam: Math.random()
},
function(response){
$('#tabs-photos').html(response);
}
);
});
Finally, when the user calls the drill-down on the ajax generated graph, it uses the MaintAction form which has been populated with the needed variables:
function DrillDown() {
//get the necessary variables and populate the form inputs
document.MaintAction.action = "index.cfm?file=somepage.cfm&Config=someConfig";
document.MaintAction.submit();
}
and that takes us to the new page, from which we'd like to return to the first page but with the ajax-loaded photos.
The best bet is to use the BBQ method. For this, you don't have to actually include the anchor tags in your page; in fact, doing so would cause problems. This page: http://ajaxpatterns.org/Unique_URLs explains how the underlying process works. I'm sure a jQuery plugin would make the actual implementation much easier.
Regarding your other question, about how this could be done with session variables - I've actually done something similar to that, prior to learning about the BBQ method. This was specifically to save the state of a jqGrid component, but it could be easily changed to support any particular Ajax state. Basically, what I did was keep a session variable around for each instance of each component that stored the last parameters passed to the server via AJAX requests. Then, on the client side, the first thing I did was run a synchronous XHR request back to the server to fetch the state from that session variable. Using the callback method for that synchronous request, I then set up the components on my page using those saved parameters. This worked for me, but if I had to do it again I would definitely go with the BBQ method because it is much simpler to deal with and also allows more than one level of history.
Some example code based on your update:
$('#applyFilter').click(function(){
var id = $("#filterid").val(); // assumes the below id value is stored in some input on the page with the id "filterid"
// fill in the Photos tab
$.get('tracking/listPhotos.cfm',
{
id: id // I'm assuming this is what you need to remember when the page is returned to via a back-button...
//randParam: Math.random() - I assume this is to prevent caching? See below
},
function(response){
$('#tabs-photos').html(response);
}
);
});
/* fixes stupid caching behavior, primarily in IE */
$.ajaxSetup({ cache: false });
$.ajax({
async: false,
url: 'tracking/listPhotosSessionKeeper.cfm',
success: function (data, textStatus, XMLHttpRequest)
{
if (data.length)
{
$("#filterid").val(data);
$('#applyFilter').trigger('click');
}
}
});
This is what you need on the client-side to fetch the state of the photo list. On the server side, you'll need to add this modification to tracking/listPhotos.cfm:
<cfset session.lastUsedPhotoFilterID = URL.id>
And add this new one-line file, tracking/listPhotosSessionKeeper.cfm:
<cfif IsDefined("session.lastUsedPhotoFilterID")><cfoutput>#session.lastUsedPhotoFilterID#</cfoutput></cfif>
Together these changes will keep track of the last ID used by the user, and will load it up each time the page is rendered (whether via a back button, or simply by the user revisiting the page).
I have an app that has several different types of form elements which all post data to the server with jQuery AJAX.
What I want to do is:
Show a loader during AJAX transmission
Prevent the user from submitting twice+ (clicking a lot)
This is easy to do on a one off basis for every type of form on the site (comments, file upload, etc). But I'm curious to learn if that is a more global way to handle this?
Something that's smart enough to say:
If a form is submitting to the server and waiting for a response, ignore all submits
Show a DISABLED class on the submitted / clicked item
Show a loading class on the class="spinner" which is closest to the submit item clicked
What do you think? Good idea? Done before?
Take a look at the jQuery Global Ajax Event Handlers.
In a nutshell, you can set events which occur on each and every AJAX request, hence the name Global Event Handlers. There are a few different events, I'll use ajaxStart() and ajaxComplete() in my code sample below.
The idea is that we show the loading, disable the form & button on the ajaxStart() event, then reenable the form and hide the loading element inside the ajaxComplete() event.
var $form = $("form");
$form.ajaxStart(function() {
// show loading
$("#loading", this).show();
// Add class of disabled to form element
$(this).addClass("disabled");
// Disable button
$("input[type=submit]", this).attr("disabled", true);
});
And the AJAX complete event
$form.ajaxComplete(function() {
// hide loading
$("#loading", this).hide();
// Remove disabled class
$(this).removeClass("disabled");
// Re-enable button
$("input[type=submit]", this).removeAttr("disabled");
});
You might need to attach to the ajaxError event as well in case an AJAX call fails since you might need to clean up some of the elements. Test it out and see what happens on a failed AJAX request.
P.S. If you're calling $.ajax or similar ($.getJSON), you can still set these events via $.ajaxStart and $.ajaxComplete since the AJAX isn't attached to any element. You'll need to rearrange the code a little though since you won't have access to $(this).
I believe you have to do 2 for sure and 3 to improve usability of your app. It is better to keep backend dumb but if you have a security issue you should handle that too.
This is probably going to get a resounding no, but I am wondering if it possible to have the URl change dynamically with using hashing, and without invoking a http request from the browser?
My client is keen on using AJAX for main navigation. This is fine, when the end user goes to the front page first, but when they want to use the deep linking, despite it working, it forces an extra load time as the page loads the front page, then invokes the AJAX from the hash.
UPDATE: Could it be possible, given that what I want to avoid is the page reload (the reason is that it looks bad) to stem the reload by catching the hash with PHP before the headers are sent, and redirecting before the page load. This way only one page loads, and the redirect is all but invisible to the user. Not sure how to do this, but seems like it is possible?
Yes, this is possible. I often do this to store state in the hash part of the URL. The result is that the page doesn't reload, but if the user does reload, they're taken to the right page.
Using this method, the URL will look like: "/index#page=home" or "/index#page=about"
You'll need to write a JavaScript function that handles navigation, and you'll need a containing div that gets rewritten with the contents fetched from AJAX.
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<div id="content"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
function link(page) {
location.hash = "page="+page;
loadPage(page);
}
// NOTE: This is using MooTools. Use the AJAX method in whatever
// JavaScript framework you're using.
function loadPage(page) {
new Request.HTML({
url: "/ajax/"+page+".html",
onSuccess: function(tree, elements, html) {
document.id('content').setProperty('html', html);
}
}).get();
}
</script>
Now, you'll also need to have something that checks the hash on page load to load the right content initially. Again, this is using MooTools, but use whatever onLoad method your JavaScript framework provides.
<script type="text/javascript">
document.addEvent('domready', function() {
parts = location.hash.split('=');
loadPage(parts[1]);
}
</script>
Ok, the problem is that opening an AJAX link of the form http://example.com/#xyz results in a full page being downloaded to the browser, and then the AJAX-altered content is changed once the page has loaded and checked the hash part of its URL. The user has a diconcerting experience.
You can hugely improve this by making a page that just contains the static elements - menus, etc. - and a loading GIF in the content area. This page checks its URL upon loading and dynamically fetches the content specified by the hash part. The page can have any URL you want; we'll use http://example.com/a. Links to this page (http://example.com/a#xyz) now provide a good user experience for users with scripting enabled.
However, new users won't come to the site by fetching http://example.com/a; they'll fetch http://example.com. This is fine - serve the full page, including the home page content and links that don't require scripting to work (e.g., http://example.com/xyz). A script run on loading this page should alter the href of AJAXable links to their AJAX form (http://example.com/a#xyz); thus the first link a user clicks on will result in a full page load but subsequent ones won't.
The only remaining problem is is a no-script user gets sent an AJAX link. You can add a noscript block to the AJAX page that contains a message explaining the problem and provides a link back to the homepage; you could include instructions on how to enable scripting or even how to modify the link by removing a# and pressing enter.
It's not a great answer, but you can offer a different link in the page itself; e.g., if the address bar shows /#xyz you include a link to /xyz somewhere in the page. You could also add a link or button that uses script to bookmark the page, which would again use the non-AJAX form of the link.