[Qgis-developer] Download stats

[Larry Shaffer]

Hi,

On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 1:53 PM, <pcreso at pcreso.com> wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> one point -
>
> I generally install QGIS on OpenSuse & Ubuntu Linux from the relevant
> package repositories, so you won't see any downloads. I would guess that
> this is pretty common for Linux users, but I have no idea if you are able
> to get numbers for this?
>

That's a really good point. Download counts are not a very accurate gauge
of overall install base. I suggest the following.

Add a user profiler tool to QGIS. This might work in the following manner:

* User installs a new version of QGIS (say 2.0) and launches it for the
first time
* Profiler tool sees from main QSettings that it has not sent a user
profile report yet
* Profiler tool shows a simple dialog with revealable gathered info on
their profile (see below) that kindly asks if it is OK to send the info to
the project, with buttons like 'No Thanks' and 'Send to QGIS Project'
* Profiler tool saves user choice, and if sending profile generates a
simple UUID for the user and saves that as well, to QSettings
* Profiler tool sends info to a project server that looks up user's UUID
and if not present adds the profile to a database
* If data was successfully saved to remote server, user is notified and
thanked
* On any following launch of same QGIS version, if UUID or No Thanks choice
is in QSettings user is not asked to send profile info

Possible generated profile info:

* OS (flavor, version, etc.)
* Computer profile (cpu, ram, etc.)
* Supporting software versions (like in About Dialog: Qt, GDAL, etc. +
Python, and maybe others)
* Qt style used (cleanlooks, plastique, macintosh, oxygen, etc.)
* Screen resolution (maybe number of screens)
* Whether device is touch enabled
* Probably more...

Optional info the user can provide via the dialog's interface:

* Listing of installed non-core plugins and which ones are active (of all
plugins)
* App's font and size (and maybe other helpful main Options settings)
* User's info (very limited: name/nickname, title, web address, etc.)
* Choose from editable combobox for work discipline (hydrology, geology,
cartography, student, general gis, etc.) with option to input 'other' type
* Choose their generalized location on a world map (gathers info like for
QGIS user's map)
* Probably more...

The dialog shown by the profiler tool could concisely explain how this info
will help the project make QGIS better. This is a fairly common approach in
software development for gathering non-intrusive and non-sensitive user
profile info. If implemented, it needs to be done in a discrete and
not-annoying manner, with the option (maybe in Help menu) to run the tool
and send the profile info at any time to the project.

Since this is an open source, community-driven project with very
active/helpful users, I think we may find many users opting to send the
profile info.

Regards,

Larry



> Brent Wood
>
> --- On *Fri, 2/22/13, Tim Sutton <tim at linfiniti.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Tim Sutton <tim at linfiniti.com>
> Subject: Re: [Qgis-developer] Download stats
> To: cavallini at faunalia.it
> Cc: "qgis-developer" <qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org>
> Date: Friday, February 22, 2013, 9:17 AM
>
> Hi
>
> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Paolo Cavallini <cavallini at faunalia.it<http://mc/compose?to=cavallini@faunalia.it>
> > wrote:
>
> Hi all.
> Do we have updated statistics of downloads?
>
>
>
> http://www.qgis.org/cgi-bin/awstats.pl?urlfilter=/downloads/QGIS-OSGeo4W-1.8.0-.*-Setup.exe&urlfilterex=&output=urldetail&config=qgis&framename=mainright&month=all&year=2012
>
> Just tweak the url parameters as needed.
>
> Regards
>
> Tim
>
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Paolo Cavallini - Faunalia
> www.faunalia.eu
> Full contact details at www.faunalia.eu/pc
> Nuovi corsi QGIS e PostGIS: http://www.faunalia.it/calendario
>
>
>
>
> --
> Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  Manager)
> ==============================================
> Visit http://linfiniti.com to find out about:
>  * QGIS programming services
>  * Mapserver and PostGIS based hosting plans
>  * FOSS Consulting Services
> Skype: timlinux Irc: timlinux on #qgis at freenode.net
> ==============================================
>
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