ParaView usage logger

Tips and Tricks
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ParaView now has an optional usage logger. This logger defaults off. It is documented in the class reference here: https://kitware.github.io/paraview-docs/nightly/cxx/classpqUsageLoggingBehavior.html. Here is the checkin: https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/issues/20267.

This class will make a call to a website with information about the user. A few notes:

  • Make sure you are actually using your file named “usage_logger.json”. Put an illegal word in there, such as “stop” without the ". ParaView should make noise.
  • Make sure you are calling a website by the website name. If the disk name is /web/paraview/myLogger/logScript.sh, and the website is seen as http://paraview.Company.com:/paraview/myLogger/logScript.sh, call to the website, not the disk.
  • On the website, you need a script that catches an http:/mywebsite/myLogger/logScript.sh. Google is your friend.
  • Test this receiving script using curl.
1 Like
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This documentation needs to be cleaned up. In the mean time, here is how to get this logger to work.

  • Add the file usage_logger.json into your ParaView install. Details are in the source file Qt/ApplicationComponents/pqUsageLoggingBehavior.cxx and .h. and in the class description above.

This is going to call (for example) http://my-website.com:/cgi-bin/my_tracking_file.cgi?user=myName&platforms=MacOS-arm&date=12:34:2020&product=ParaView&version=5:12:0

Place a file in your website in a directory named cgi-bin/my_tracking_file.cgi. This file will most likely have java in it, and can catch the parameters of the call. As I am not a Java programmer, just google “passing data to a cgi script”. Append these into a file.

Then, create a python script that parses this file, and does usage counts. Alternatively, if you don’t have much usage, this can be done by hand.

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Wrong copy paste ?