Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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I'm a computer engineering student from Spain and I have a technical question:
How do you obtain the urls the user is visiting? Do you use any kind of packet sniffing?
I've seen that you have specific plugins for opera, iexplorer, firefox, chrome and safari... so maybe you are using something else?
Thank you in advance!
Regards,
Javier
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/13/2010(UTC)
Posts: 872
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We are using a method similar to this http://delphi.about.com/od/windowsshellapi/l/aa060303b.htmThis works only on IE, but it is similar for other browsers. Packet sniffer is great because it works on all browsers, so no need to write it specifically for one browser. The problem is that it is not accurate enough for the way we display things. For example if I search for something on google and open 10 results in new tab, by the time I will move to the next tab to view one of the results everything will finish downloading. So if I later flick through tabs with results I have no way of knowing where I am. If you are not looking for extreme accuracy I would say packet sniffing is the way to go. It will not only work for all browsers, but also for all versions of the browser. For example method above probably works for IE8, but you have no guarantee it will work for IE9 or IE10. If you want the accuracy then you need to use some other method, maybe a browser extension or the one mentioned in the article.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Thank you for the quick answer.
I thought that making an url logger was going to be easier!
I'm currently using a packet sniffer. The problem is the one you mentioned above (first problem)
Furthermore, I got lof of results from .com or advertisment companies, google analytics, etc... so I really can't know what's the user is visiting exactly...
Example: I visit oglaf.com, and I get: oglaf.com, projectwonderful.com, chartbeat.net... the two seconds ones are from the banners!
So I think your aproach is more accurate, but also quite difficult to do, because you have to do it not only for each browser, but also for each version
Just curiosity: how may browser * version do you maintain for adquiring the urls? It is really difficult to program?
You are not thinking about realising that url logger like open source (not the whole project, of course), don't you? Haha!
Thanks!
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/13/2010(UTC)
Posts: 872
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We would love to release them as open source if that means that we get a help from the community maintaining them. But based on the interest for plugins for other apps I'm a bit pessimistic this would happen and in the end we would only have more work updating the open source project as well. But I can help a bit. If you don't need the source you can use MT plugins if you like. Take a look at this thread, there is a sample project which should track most browsers. If you want to use this I can fix it to work with plugins for v1.4. We just changed the interface a bit. http://forum.manictime.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=23
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Thank you!
But I'm not sure I understand... (my english is not very good).
You mean I can directly use the plugins you already have in my project?
The problem is that the project can change into something commercial because if for a client that is interested in knowing which urls are viewing their workers.
I don't know if you will be happy of me using it in a commercial project.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Furthermore, I'm using C++, not Dephi... so it won't work directly when used in a C++ project... Edited by user Wednesday, October 20, 2010 1:55:18 PM(UTC)
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/13/2010(UTC)
Posts: 872
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When you mentioned you were a student I just thought it was for more academic purposes. So please don't use them in a commercial project. If you look closer at the Delphi example it is more or less just a few Windows API calls so it should probably be easier to implement them in c++. Try using Spy++ on IE... Edited by user Wednesday, October 20, 2010 2:20:02 PM(UTC)
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Yep, don't worry. I'll do it myself and I won't use anything without permission, of course. Furthermore you are using Delphi, don't you?
I hope it will be commercial :) just one of my first jobs. We will see if I can achive it!
I'm currently near to achieve it working for Iexplorer. I will keep contact with you trough forums if I have more questions.
Thank you very much, really, I'm going to talk very well about ManicTime :)
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Ok! I have achieved it for IExplorer8:
IExplorer - 8
WorkerW > ReBarWindow32 > Address Band Root > Edit
The problem is that I don't know the combination for the rest of versions and browsers:
Firefox - 1, 2, 3, etc
Opera - 1, 2, 3, etc
IExplorer - 1, 2, 3, etc
Chrome - 1, 2, 3, etc
I will be really very grateful if you can give just this combinations, please.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Well, I achived it both for Iexplorer and Chrome.
But I have a big problem with Firefox... there is nothing to catch (all the text fields are empty in Firefox, also when I check out them using Windowse) using this method you proposed. Are you sure you are using this method in ManicTime?
Aren't you using something like Microsoft UI Automation?
It would be really helpful some additional ideas! Thanks!
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/13/2010(UTC)
Posts: 872
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You are correct, automation for FF.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 10/20/2010(UTC)
Posts: 8
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Ok, I have Chrome, Firefox and Iexplore. But I'm not lucky with Opera. I can see the url when using programs like UISpy or AccExplorer but when I try to make a tree myself using UI Automation I can't see the url... I'm using the example provided here (scroll down): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd317975(VS.85).aspx Any advice for getting the url from Opera? Thank you in advance.
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