Flash plugin: Analytics - Customizing Tracked Values Created Feb 19, 2010

The example shown here: http://flowplayer.org/demos/events/google-analytics.html Is the default functioning of google analytics. It will automatically show the name of the file being tracked.

Here's a quick example of it in the clip section.

clip:{
        onStart: function(clip) { 
            _tracker._trackEvent("Videos", "Play", clip.url); 
        },
        onPause: function(clip) { 
            _tracker._trackEvent("Videos", "Pause", clip.url, parseInt(this.getTime())); 
        },
        onStop: function(clip) { 
            _tracker._trackEvent("Videos", "Stop", clip.url, parseInt(this.getTime())); 
        },
        onFinish: function(clip) { 
            _tracker._trackEvent("Videos", "Finish", clip.url); 
        }
},

It's possible to additionally show the title name but it would create a massive number of Event categories in google analytics. If your site gets a lot of traffic and has loads of videos the number of categories would be absurd.

But the clip section require that the 'ga.js' be included. I'm using the flash plug-in so I don't have to use the 'ga.js' script.

The plug-in currently works great except that GA groups the events by the URL that the video is played on, which as you mentioned, creates 100's of categories. That's why I want to dynamically set a specific value, to something like 'Videos', so all events are tracked under the same category.

Additionally, it would be nice to also set the value for the 3rd parameter to be a logical name, human readable title of the video, instead of a cryptic url and filename.


Then, could you change "private function doPlayerTrackEvent()" to use its current values (_embeddedURL, _eventLabel, _player.playlist.getClip(0).completeUrl, _player.status.time) as defaults only if none are specifically passed into it. This would allow for backward compatibility and extend the functionality.

Have you tried specifying labels for the config?

    plugins:{ 
        gatracker: { 
            url: "flowplayer.analytics-3.1.5.swf", 
            labels: { 
                start: "Start",     
                play: "Play",     
                pause: "Pause",     
                resume: "Resume",     
                seek: "Seek",     
                stop: "Stop",     
                finish: "Finish"    
            }, 
            debug: true, 
            trackingMode: "AS3", 
            googleId: "UA-5877901-1" // your Google Analytics id here 
        } 
    }

There's more info a bit down the page here: http://flowplayer.org/demos/plugins/flash/analytics.html

According to the docs the label's are meant for just this type of sorting. While it will still show the file name but it would categorize it by labels.

Yeah, I've tried that. Those values are used for labeling the actual event that happens (Play, Stop, etc.), and not for tagging the media on which the event occurred.

BTW: nice profile picture.

Edge, I'm using this plugin since a few days.
I can see visits in GA but that's all, no info about stream and/or events.
Where could I find these ??

Thank you.

They should be in the Events section of google analytics.

Sign into google analytics.
Go to Content on the left hand side, expand it.
Then look for Event Tracking.

The events should be listed there. If not check the config using firebug to make sure its sending the data ect.

Many thanks !

Ahh I see, I misunderstood what you're trying to accomplish. Your correct that would require some custom work and a compile. You could add this to the feature request forum here: http://flowplayer.org/forum/6

This would actually be helpful for folks using an automated server side encoding process that generates numbered output file names.