impressionist/README.rdoc

= impressionist

A lightweight plugin that logs impressions per action or manually per model

== I would not call this a stable plugin yet, although I have been running it in prod with no problems.  Use at your own risk ;-)

== What does this thing do?

Logs an impression... and I use that term loosely.  It can log page impressions (technically action impressions), but it is not limited to that.  You can log impressions multiple times per request.
And you can also attach it to a model.  The goal of this project is to provide customizable web stats that are immediately accessible in your application as opposed to using G Analytics and pulling data using their API.  
You can attach custom messages to impressions and log multiple impressions per request.  No reporting yet.. this thingy just creates the data.

== Which versions of Rails and Ruby is this compatible with?

Rails 3.0.3 and Ruby 1.9.2 - Sorry, but you need to upgrade if you are using Rails 2.  You know you want to anyways.. all the cool kids are doing it ;-)

== Installation

Add it to your Gemfile

    gem 'impressionist', :git => 'git@github.com:cowboycoded/impressionist.git'

Install with Bundler

    bundle install

Generate the impressions table migration

    rails g impressionist

Run the migration

    rake db:migrate

The following fields are provided in the migration:

    t.string   "impressionable_type"  # model type: Widget
    t.integer  "impressionable_id"    # model instance ID: @widget.id
    t.integer  "user_id"              # automatically logs @current_user.id
    t.string   "controller_name"      # logs the controller name
    t.string   "action_name"          # logs the action_name
    t.string   "view_name"            # TODO: log individual views (as well as partials and nested partials)
    t.string   "request_hash"         # unique ID per request, in case you want to log multiple impressions and associate them together
    t.string   "ip_address"           # request.remote_ip
    t.string   "message"              # custom message you can add
    t.datetime "created_at"           # I am not sure what this is.... Any clue?
    t.datetime "updated_at"           # never seen this one before either....  Your guess is as good as mine??

== Usage

Log all actions in a controller

    WidgetsController < ApplicationController
      impressionist
    end

Specify actions you want logged in a controller

    WidgetsController < ApplicationController
      impressionist :actions=>[:show,:index]
    end

Make your models impressionable.  This allows you to attach impressions to an AR model instance.

    class Widget < ActiveRecord::Base
      is_impressionable
    end

Log an impression per model instance in your controller:

    @widget = Widget.find
    impressionist(@widget,message:"wtf is a widget?")

== Development Roadmap

* Automatic impression logging in views.  For example, log initial view, and any partials called from initial view
* Customizable black list for user-agents or IP addresses.  Impressions will be ignored.  Web admin as part of the Engine.
* Reporting engine
* AB testing integration

== Contributing to impressionist
 
* Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn't been implemented or the bug hasn't been fixed yet
* Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn't requested it and/or contributed it
* Fork the project
* Start a feature/bugfix branch
* Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution
* Make sure to add rpsec tests for it. Patches or features without tests will be ignored.  Also, try to write better tests than I do ;-)
* If adding engine controller or view functionality, use HAML and Inherited Resources.  
* All testing is done inside a small Rails app (test_app).  You will find specs within this app.
== Copyright

Copyright (c) 2011 cowboycoded. See LICENSE.txt for
further details.