Add Analytic event for "Lookup Dictionary" (see if we can remove it)

[david-allison]

I don't think the feature is used. It's 10 years old, esoteric, hard to access, and probably deprecated by the share/system context menu.

It adds complexity to AbstractFlashcardViewer, and may be better as a separate app to allow system-wide usage, instead of an AnkiDroid specific feature.

I would like an analytic event to see if users still use it, to argue for its removal in 2.16

Likely entry point:

Anki-Android/AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/anki/Lookup.java

Lines 78 to 83 in a079a61

	public static boolean lookUp(String text) {
	if (!mIsDictionaryAvailable) {
	return false;
	}
	// clear text from leading and closing dots, commas, brackets etc.
	text = text.trim().replaceAll("[,;:\\s(\\[)\\].]*$", "").replaceAll("^[,;:\\s(\\[)\\].]*", "");

[ritvij14]

I went through the code for Lookup.java. And looking into AbstractFlashcardViewer I understood that this class is being initialized during loading of the collection (when the user starts using the flashcard deck). And Lookup was being used as a dictionary for translation (please correct me if I am wrong in understanding this part).
I also had 2 doubts, one, that this is the same analytic event being used here right?

Anki-Android/AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/widget/AnkiDroidWidgetSmall.java

Line 61 in 67f0938

UsageAnalytics.sendAnalyticsEvent(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "enabled");

And also, just out of curiosity, how would this whole part function without the Lookup class?

[david-allison]

And also, just out of curiosity, how would this whole part function without the Lookup class?

We'd remove it - I don't think the feature's used at all.

---

UsageAnalytics.sendAnalyticsEvent(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "enabled"); 

Pending further explanation by @mikehardy (I'll add this to the Development Guide, or code, as I wasn't aware and learned in passing a few days ago)

The first argument is the category, and we may have a finite number of these(?), so we may want to standardise the input of this value

[ritvij14]

We'd remove it - I don't think the feature's used at all.

UsageAnalytics.sendAnalyticsEvent(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "enabled"); 

Pending further explanation by @mikehardy (I'll add this to the Development Guide, or code, as I wasn't aware and learned in passing a few days ago)

Ok got it.

The first argument is the category, and we may have a finite number of these(?), so we may want to standardise the input of this value

Oh, you mean in the development guide to AnkiDroid right?

Also, when adding a new analytics event, how do we know that it has been added correctly?

[david-allison]

Also, when adding a new analytics event, how do we know that it has been added correctly?

We have a dev version of Google Analytics which dev builds send data to - we'll work something out. Typically we can just check logs to see if it works.

All in all, assume the API calls will be stable, and do some final testing afterwards.

Oh, you mean in the development guide to AnkiDroid right?

Yeah - Analytics are an area of the code that I don't have much experience with. Mike's very knowledgeable, and it's best to share this knowledge for myself, and future developers in the guide.

[mikehardy]

I just checked to see if categories were limited as it was vague in my mind as well. I do not believe there are finite categories https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/field-reference#eventCategory

So then it is just a question on how to log the data so that reports are meaningful.

The only report I can easily create that shows "how much activity total there is" vs "how many times a user did a thing" is the engagement report that shows total screen views plus screens/session (so you can see about how many user sessions there were, easily) with event categories on the right (so you can see how many times a thing happened, and relate it to the number of user sessions)

Which makes me think using a unique category is correct here, so you can answer the question "how many times is this used vs total app usage"

For that purpose, I think using the Lookup classname is fine. For the value, probably including which dictionary was used would be useful - the idea for the event value is to include any other information that is useful when you have questions about the feature usage. For the widget that's just "enabled" or "disabled" - there is nothing more to know - but the dictionary usage has more information that might be interesting.

[mikehardy]

If you turn on debugging for analytics, I think it logs out every event it sends? So you will see them going out in the logs - or you should -

Anki-Android/AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/anki/analytics/UsageAnalytics.java

Line 240 in 87d7f73

Timber.d("sendAnalyticsEvent() category/action/value/label: %s/%s/%s/%s", category, action, value, label);

Trust the logs

[ritvij14]

For the value, probably including which dictionary was used would be useful - the idea for the event value is to include any other information that is useful when you have questions about the feature usage. For the widget that's just "enabled" or "disabled" - there is nothing more to know - but the dictionary usage has more information that might be interesting.

@mikehardy about this, how about we add analytics event to choosing a specific type of dictionary?

Anki-Android/AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/anki/Lookup.java

Lines 44 to 48 in 87d7f73

	switch (mDictionary) {
	case DICTIONARY_AEDICT:
	mDictionaryAction = "sk.baka.aedict.action.ACTION_SEARCH_EDICT";
	mIsDictionaryAvailable = Utils.isIntentAvailable(mContext, mDictionaryAction);
	break;

For example, we add separate analytics event triggers in each of the cases of the switch construct and we make events this way ->

1. aedict for first
2. web for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
3. leo for 5th
4. colordict for 6th
5. fora for 7th, and finally
6. none

This way we can categorize the events for all dictionaries.

[mikehardy]

@ritvij14 I think you would do it in this switch:

Anki-Android/AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/anki/Lookup.java

Line 78 in 87d7f73

public static boolean lookUp(String text) {

But otherwise, yes so I should expect to see Analytics hits of category "Lookup" with value "aedict" etc

[ritvij14]

@ritvij14 I think you would do it in this switch:

Anki-Android/AnkiDroid/src/main/java/com/ichi2/anki/Lookup.java

Line 78 in 87d7f73

public static boolean lookUp(String text) {

But otherwise, yes so I should expect to see Analytics hits of category "Lookup" with value "aedict" etc

Alright got it. I will get started on this and send a PR soon. One more thing, how should I test out the additions of analytics changes locally?

[mikehardy]

@ritvij14 watch logcat, and if the analytics logs indicate the event is being logged, it will be logged, you may trust it.

[ritvij14]

@mikehardy for this part I am getting a very small log, and there is no mention of analytics events being logged in here :-

2021-03-20 21:44:43.412 12099-12099/com.ichi2.anki D/ViewRootImpl: [TouchInput][ViewRootImpl] MotionEvent { action=ACTION_DOWN, id[0]=0, pointerCount=1, eventTime=49008305, downTime=49008305 } moveCount:0
2021-03-20 21:44:43.558 12099-12099/com.ichi2.anki D/ViewRootImpl: [TouchInput][ViewRootImpl] MotionEvent { action=ACTION_UP, id[0]=0, pointerCount=1, eventTime=49008453, downTime=49008305 } moveCount:1
2021-03-20 21:44:43.583 12099-12182/com.ichi2.anki D/Surface: Surface::disconnect(this=0x7ea3183000,api=1)
2021-03-20 21:44:43.586 12099-12182/com.ichi2.anki D/OpenGLRenderer: endAllActiveAnimators on 0x7ea311b500 (AlertController$RecycleListView) with handle 0x7e505a83a0
2021-03-20 21:44:43.586 12099-12099/com.ichi2.anki D/View: [Warning] assignParent to null: this = DecorView@63e6db1[Preferences]

There should be some log for sendAnalytics() as well right?

[mikehardy]

In debug builds I believe you need to go into advanced settings and toggle on debug analytics, can you try that? And if so please add a note about this requirement on #8284 as we try to document this better

[ritvij14]

@mikehardy I got the problem.
Actually, the place where I am adding the analytic actions is wrong. I am adding it in the lookup() function of the Lookup class. But when the person selects a dictionary from the Lookup Dictionary option, it doesn't call this function at all. This function is only called when using the dictionary in AbstractFlashCardViewer.java.

So what I did was, in the Preferences class, under the case of advanced settings, I added an extra onPreferenceChangeListener for dictionary preference. And now, when the user chooses a dictionary, it automatically sends an action to analytics.
Here are 2 examples I tested:-

2021-03-20 22:59:59.164 24539-24539/com.ichi2.anki D/ViewRootImpl: [TouchInput][ViewRootImpl] MotionEvent { action=ACTION_DOWN, id[0]=0, pointerCount=1, eventTime=53501656, downTime=53501656 } moveCount:0
2021-03-20 22:59:59.280 24539-24539/com.ichi2.anki D/ViewRootImpl: [TouchInput][ViewRootImpl] MotionEvent { action=ACTION_UP, id[0]=0, pointerCount=1, eventTime=53501772, downTime=53501656 } moveCount:0
2021-03-20 22:59:59.309 24539-24624/com.ichi2.anki D/Surface: Surface::disconnect(this=0x7eefbc6000,api=1)
2021-03-20 22:59:59.312 24539-24624/com.ichi2.anki D/OpenGLRenderer: endAllActiveAnimators on 0x7e96e3a400 (AlertController$RecycleListView) with handle 0x7ef43e0220
2021-03-20 22:59:59.313 24539-24539/com.ichi2.anki D/View: [Warning] assignParent to null: this = DecorView@9dc712c[Preferences]
2021-03-20 22:59:59.325 24539-24539/com.ichi2.anki D/UsageAnalytics: sendAnalyticsEvent() category/action/value/label: Lookup/colordict/-2147483648/null
2021-03-20 22:59:59.326 24539-24539/com.ichi2.anki D/UsageAnalytics: getOptIn() status: true

I have also added these changes to my PR #8283.