Sunday, August 10, 2008

Tracking Silverlight And Moonlight Enabled Browsers via Google Analytics

In this post I will briefly discuss using Google Analytics in conjunction with Silverlight, to track the version installed and your application usage patterns.

Following on from Nikhil Kothari's blog entry on Tracking Silverlight-enabled Browsers via Analytics I have made a few tweaks to the original JavaScript that can be placed at the end of your HTML document after pageTracker has been initialised to provide for the following.

• A change from the old __utmSetVar function in the urchin.js tracking to the new pageTracker._setVar in ga.js version for the following reasons.
• A check for Linux to distinguish between Moonlight usage versus Silverlight.

Based on this information it may help you further refine your Silverlight strategy based on your visitors e.g.

• The split in visitor numbers between Silverlight Version 1 or 2. Important in terms of:
  
  • Install experience.
  • Documentation on why the user should upgrade (Features/Differences).
  • What messages should be displayed to the user of an older Version 1.0 client.
  • Compatibility with the upcoming Silverlight 1.0 for Mobile which will initially only support Version 1.
• Determine the cross platform use of your application.
• The possible need to cater for font availability across different operating systems.

Also as indicated in the comments of Nikhil's blog post Jeff Wilcox has a great post Using Google Analytics with rich (managed) web applications in Silverlight that explores how to integrate tracking within your Silverlight application.

<script type="text/javascript">

function getSilverlightVersion() {

    var version = '';

    var container = null;

    try {

        var control = null;

        var product = 'Silverlight';

        if ( navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Linux")!=-1) product="Moonlight";

        if (window.ActiveXObject) {

            control = new ActiveXObject('AgControl.AgControl');

        }

        else {

            if (navigator.plugins['Silverlight Plug-In']) {

                container = document.createElement('div');

                document.body.appendChild(container);

                container.innerHTML= '<embed type="application/x-silverlight" src="data:," />';

                control = container.childNodes[0];

            }

        }

        if (control) {

            if (control.isVersionSupported('2.0')) { version = product + '/2.0'; }

            else if (control.isVersionSupported('1.0')) { version = product + '/1.0'; }

        }

    }

    catch (e) { }

    if (container) {

        document.body.removeChild(container);

    }

    return version;

}

if ( pageTracker )

    pageTracker._setVar(getSilverlightVersion()); 

</script>

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moonlight | silverlight