TasteSee Your Mint

Introduction

Fresh View is the perfect companion to Mint, the no-nonsense web site visitor tracking application by Shaun Inman. Fresh View uses XML-based SVG to visualize your Mint visitor data. Of course, no one wants to install a Pepper without seeing beforehand how it looks, right? Well, to quell that insatiable desire, voilà:

Note that Fresh View requires Mint v1.2+ or later!

Although SVG, as a standard, has been around since 1999, browser makers are just getting around to implementing it natively. Currently, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Camino, and Opera are the only browsers with shipping SVG support. Safari (nightly builds) for Mac OS X is the midst of gaining SVG support, but it is not clear how soon production release of an SVG-capable version will occur.

Recommended Browser Setups:

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0 (Windows, Mac OS X, *NIX)
• Mozilla Camino 1.0 (Mac OS X)
• Safari 2.0, nightly builds (Mac OS X)

Alternatively, users can download the Adobe SVG plugin:

• Windows: http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/beta.html
• Mac OS X, *nix: http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/

and use the Adobe SVG Plugin with these browsers:

• Firefox 1.0.6 with Adobe SVG Plugin v6 (Windows)
• Safari 1.3 or 2.0 with Adobe SVG Plugin v3 (Mac OS X)

Download

Fresh View v1.11

Donate

via PayPal (click the smiley)

Although Fresh View is offered free, I did spend a chunk of my time developing the basis for the creation of the SVG graphs and perfecting its implementation for Mint. As I am in medical school, I fit the typical med student profile: tired, hungry, and very in debt. Any contribution would certainly be appreciated but is not necessary to use Fresh View!

Installing Fresh View v1.11

If you have never installed Fresh View, follow these instructions:

1. Upload the /kylerove/ directory and its contents to /mint/pepper/.
2. Login to your Mint installation, and in the Preferences click “Install” under Pepper.
3. Click the Fresh View “Install” button. Click “Okay.”

Updating to Fresh View v1.11

If you are updating Fresh View, follow these instructions:

1. Login to your Mint installation, and in the Preferences click on Fresh View to see its preferences. Click “Uninstall.”
2. Delete the /kylerove/ directory in /mint/pepper/.
3. Upload the directory /kylerove/ to your /mint/pepper/ directory.
4. Login to your Mint installation, and in the Preferences click “Install” under Pepper.
5. Click the Fresh View “Install” button. Click “Okay.”

More Information

Some features of Fresh View include:

• Matches Mint look and feel
• Novel “Weekend Highlighting” on Past Week and Past Month graphs, creating easy-to visualize weekend versus weekdays
• Ability to cache graphs to minimize time to reconstruct them (off by default)
• Rollover SVG-based tooltip to show information on a specific data point
• Anti-aliased graphics (thank you SVG)

Technical Support

As a first-year medical student, I do not have a great deal of time to work around specific issues. Please post your issues to the Mint Forums » Pepper. If you still have problems, you may send me an email to my Gmail address, which is my Mint Forum user name (kyle.rove) at the usual Gmail.com.

Note: The Adobe SVG Plugin likes to cache files very persistently on the local hard drive. Sometimes to get graphs to update, you may need to either:

1. Refresh the entire page
2. Emtpy your browser cache, or
3. Restart your browser.

Current Known Issues

• Firefox does not support the guassian blur filter and puts an error in the JavaScript console; This error does not affect the ability to use Fresh View.
• Tooltips do not work in Safari/WebKit nightly builds.

Change Log

• Change Log, v111
  • Completely rewrote logic for sending a request for the SVG graphs to use one of three methods of collection to support a multitude of PHP server setups
  • Rewrote errors pertaining to SVG graph requests that go wrong
  • Fixed line-wrapping issue on SVG error messages
  • Altered Past Month data collection to rely entirely on the mint_visits table to gather total and unique stats, replacing mixed data from database and data aggregated/serialized by the Default Pepper Visits pane
  • Added new directive at top of class.php file to prevent viewing, per Shaun Inman’s request.
  • Added php_ini directives in relevant files to prevent PHP from escaping quotes in returned SVG/XML files in certain setups

• Change Log, v110
  • Removed need for writing to files on server (Yay!) by adding cURL / file_get_contents() methods. If one of the needed protocols is not available on your web host, the other is tried. If neither is available, a SVG error is returned.
  • Added SVG error messages
  • Updated install instructions
  • Updated SVG fall-back message for those without SVG capabilities

• Change Log, v103
  • Fixed bug where 24HourTime preference was giving error (for real this time)

• Change Log, v102
  • Fixed bug where 24HourTime preference was giving error

• Change Log, v101
  • Initialized variables that were giving error notices (if turned on in PHP).
  • Added data check and error function if for some bizarre reason, the Default Pepper data is not accessible or is malformed.

• Change Log, v100
  • Fresh View updated for new Mint 1.2+ Pepper API
  • Fresh View no longer considered beta!

• Change Log, v015
  • Fresh View now requires Mint 1.12+
  • Updated date parsing to match Mint v1.12 date functions, removing aberrant September x-axis label

• Change Log, v014
  • Fixed cache preference entries so entries other than zero cache graphs
  • Added 24 hour time preference for the Past Day graph
  • Fixed WEEKEND text to not display when today is Sunday in Past Week graph

• Change Log, v013
  • Abstracted layout code into generateLayout() function
  • Fixed redundant code in date manipulation and x-axis generation
  • Removed getFormattedDate() calls as function returns unusable contextual dates (Today, This month) that created more complexities in the code to work around
  • Altered Past Day template to use am and pm instead of 24 hour times
  • Added new task in update instructions for users to empty browser cache

• Change Log, v012
  • Fixed hard-coded path to css file in SVG graphs

• Change Log, v011
  • Updated _Read Me.txt to have correct paths to caches directory and files
  • Updated install() logic to check for Mint 1.1+
  • Resized graph to be optimized for 1024px width browser window
  • Increased font sizes by 1px across board in styles.css, per resized graphs
  • Abstracted (most) hard-coded coordinates to allow for graph layout changes
  • Moved legend below graph
  • Fixed hard-coded root directory, now uses proper getCfgValue('install_dir')
  • Default graphs all read zero, preventing user from seeing bogus data

• Change Log, v010
  • Altered styles.css to fix center alignment of Adobe SVG Plugin rendering of tooltip text

• Change Log, v009
  • Fixed minor JavaScript error
  • Altered the backup HTML output if SVG graph cannot be viewed (lack of capable browser or lack of Adobe SVG Plugin)

• Change Log, v008
  • Requires Mint v1.1!
  • Added comments to the various functions in class.php
  • Fixed missing Weekend Highlights in Past Month graph
  • Fixed extra “WEEKEND” text for Past Week graph
  • Now uses Mint look for error display on install
  • Made tooltip wider to fit data points with lots of hits or uniques

• Change Log, v007
  • Added logic to only allow installation of plugin once permissions are adequate on cache directory and files

• Change Log, v006
  • Added logic to ensure data is received from SI_DefaultPepper plugin
  • Removed unused %y-axis_lines% variable from the SVG templates
  • Fixed styles.css so that Adobe SVG Plugin does not report “Bad CSS Selector”
  • Fixed styles.css so that Adobe SVG Plugin properly centers X-axis labels

• Change Log, v005
  • Modified handling of Weekend Highlighting for Past Week and Past Month graphs to no longer require a clipPath
  • Fixed onRecord() to return an empty array() to avoid empty rows in the database
  • Updated _Read Me.txt

• Change Log, v004
  • Modified graphics for legend (removed bar on right)
  • Unified the two SQL queries for Past Month graph into one (thanks to Colby Makowsky!)
  • Modified caching mechanism to be optional (all times set to 0)
  • Added _Read Me.txt

• Change Log, v003:
  • Fixed misplaced and blank SVG tooltip for unique data points on all graphs
  • Added logic to hide “WEEKEND” text when not fully visible on Past Week graph
  • Changed description on Past Month graph to “Reflects last 4 weeks”

• Change Log, v002:
  • Added .htaccess file to have Apache serve .svg files as XML

• Change Log, v001:
  • Initial release