Ellipse Tutorial

WARNING: This tutorial is being written! Do not hesitate to report any errors or suggestions.

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   Presentation of the statistics engine
   Activation and configuration of the statistics engine

The framework includes a statistics engine that allows to follow the users' evolution of your web application. The engine is formed by two parts. The first one allows to record in an XML file the informations relating to the activity of your web application. The second one allows to return these informations as graphics (currently a limited set of curves is offered to you, but eventually later, other informations can be dealt). It is important to note that the Ellipse' statistics are stored independently of the web server logs used.

Two types of informations can be stored: first, informations known at the opening of a new browser session and in second, those wich are accessible to each HTTP request. The activation of the statistics engine will consume, of course, CPU cycles: nevertheless if you only follow the activity of the new sessions, may be more effective. IN THE CURRENT STATE OF THINGS, ONLY THE FOLLOWING OF NEW SESSION MAY BE USEFUL.

WARNING: The informations displayed in charts are estimates. Indeed, the staistics engine seeks to not record the queries made by some automated systems (crawleur of search engines, tools of website aspiration, ...). It is not guaranteed, for example, that the number of open sessions all day, corresponds to the precise number of users who used your web application.

The charts currently generated match with - the daily activity in terms of new sessions open - the evolution of used browsers on your Web application - the evolution of operating systems used to access to your web application.

The use of the indexing engine can be configured during the construction of your Web project. The Ellipse plugin offers the configuration screen below. Thereafter it is also possible to edit the content of the file WEB-INF/web.xml.

The following table presents the significance of various parameters supported by the file WEB-INF/web.xml (it corresponds, of course with the informations presented above).