Statistics read out of use of Widget

[maarten quirynen]

Hey there,

For a project of one of our costumers we need to make a widget.
This widget acts as the play/pause/stop and chapter selector and this for a dozen of films.
The costumer wants to know which of the dozen films is viewed the most, and wants to know how many times the widget is used.
In this way the marketing section could prove the point of this multimedial installation to the management.

Is this anyway possible, via nodes or other data nodes to get a read out of this?

Thanks very much,

Maarten

Novid.be

[Martina Protze]

Hello Maarten,

two different attempts
1) we developed a new tool for the Widget Designer called Clip Logger. It lists the names of the clips that have been played and how long their opacity was more than 0.
So far, the tool is only available in the current beta version. If you are interested and if you need that tool urgently I could ask the developers to supply you with an installer for the beta
2) Create an variable for each button. Now, every time a button is clicked, not only the script is executed to change the status of the timeline but also a script to increase the count from the according variable. Thus you can track exactly how many times a button was clicked. In the same manner you could track how many times a certain command or macro, ... was executed. Would that meet your need?
Thinking about that, you could as well program the timeline with a serial link device. Each time somebody jumps to a clip a scipt to increase the variable count is executed. Another way of doing that without the serial link itself would be to program trigger points into the timeline. For example with an effect you do not use "in real" or with an graphic layer (eg opacity). With the input node PB Device Parameter you can watch the status of that effect or graphic layer and with an if-node and script output node the variable is increased.

Greetings,

[maarten quirynen]

Hey Martina,

Thank you for your answer. First i would like to have a copy of the clip logger beta if possible. Is this for XP or 7? Our machines are still running under XP.
We would need it next week if possible?
For your second suggestion. How does this work exactly?
Do you declare a variable with each cs button? Is this on the on-click event? And where do you read out the clicks? Is it a file made with the input/output node system?

Thanks very much,

Maarten

[Martina Protze]

Hi Maarten,

I will send you the link for the beta-installer directly. The Clip Logger is a tool within the Widget Designer, thus it runs on XP without problems.

Yes, I would define a variable for each button / each script you want to count.
For example, first you run the scripts
VInt,Count_Media1,0
VInt,Count_Media2,0
...
VInt,Count_Fader1,0
...

Now, if you go to the Variable list, you see these variables written down. You only have to declare variables once per project. If you save the file, the variables and their current values are saved.
Then, for example you create a CS button, where you program the scripts depending how you want to control the the timeline in Pandoras Box (with active values for the Mediachange: DeviceSetMedia,'SiteID','DeviceID','FolderID','FileID' or with jumping to specific Cues: SeqGotoCue,'SeqID','CueID' and SeqSetState,'SeqID',Play. Afterwards you type in the script VAdd,'VarName','Var1','Var2' e.g. VAdd,Count_Media1,Count_Media1,1 that will add 1 to the current value of the variable. So that is why you could declare a variable for everything, and it does not matter whether you program it on the on-click or toggle or mouse enter or on page change or or or.
I am not sure, what you mean with "And where do you read out the clicks? Is it a file made with the input/output node system?" Maybe the more detailed description above has already solved it? The click on the button executes the script to change the media and afterwards the script to increase a variable.
At the end of the day it could make sense to write down the value of each variable (or you program something with excel output nodes and making a statistics diagramm out of it and run the scripts to reset the declared variables to zero
VValue,Count_Media1,0

I hope I explained it understandingly