Use cases¶

Target group: Developers

Table of Contents

Page types as custom dimension¶

Depending on the URL structure, it is not easy to accumulate page views for one or more sections on a website. However, you can use an "action" custom dimension to measure these sections (such as "Blog", "Jobs", "Videos").

In this use case, a page type is set for a specific page when a configured section is available in the root line. The page type should only be available for the trackPageView call, so we implement an event listener based on the EnrichTrackPageViewEvent event.

The given use case results in the following code when the current page id or a parent page id is 167:

// ...
_paq.push(["trackPageView", "", {"dimension2": "Blog"}]);
// ...

The event listener

To separate the configuration from the implementation, the ID of the custom dimension and the configuration of the page types are also injected.

The $pageTypes argument is a simple associative array with the page ID of the parent page of a section as the key and the value of the custom dimension as the value of the array.

EXT:your_extension/Classes/EventListener/AddPageTypeToMatomoTracking.php

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace YourVender\YourExtension\EventListener;

use Brotkrueml\MatomoIntegration\Event\EnrichTrackPageViewEvent;
use TYPO3\CMS\Frontend\Controller\TypoScriptFrontendController;

final class AddPageTypeToMatomoTracking
{
   private int $customDimensionId;
   private array $pageTypes;

   public function __construct(
      int $customDimensionId,
      array $pageTypes
   ) {
      $this->customDimensionId = $customDimensionId;
      $this->pageTypes = $pageTypes;
   }

   public function __invoke(EnrichTrackPageViewEvent $event): void
   {
      $rootLine = $event->getRequest()->getAttribute('frontend.controller')->rootLine;
      $pageIds = array_keys($this->pageTypes);
      $hits = array_filter(
         $rootLine,
         static fn (array $page): bool => in_array($page['uid'], $pageIds)
      );
      if ($hits === []) {
         return;
      }

      $pageType = $this->pageTypes[current($hits)['uid']];
      $event->addCustomDimension($this->customDimensionId, $pageType);
   }
}

Registration of the event listener

We need to inject the custom dimension ID and the page types configuration into the event listener:

EXT:your_extension/Configuration/Services.yaml

YourVender\YourExtension\EventListener\AddPageTypeToMatomoTracking:
   arguments:
      $customDimensionId: 2
      $pageTypes:
         # key: parent page ID, value: value to set for the custom dimension
         167: Blog
         218: Jobs
         112: Videos
         # ... and possibly some more types
   tags:
      - name: event.listener
        identifier: 'your-ext/addPageTypeToMatomoTracking'

Some more ideas how to determine the page type:

Set the Matomo page type dependent on the TYPO3 page type.
Use a separate field in the page properties to select the Matomo page type.

Colour scheme as custom dimension¶

If you provide your page with a light and a dark colour scheme, it might be interesting to see how many visitors prefer which colour scheme. This can be analysed in Matomo with a "visit" custom dimension.

In contrast to the use case above, where the custom dimension should only be used for tracking a page view, this custom dimension can be defined "globally" so we can use the BeforeTrackPageViewEvent event.

The given use case results in the following code:

// ...
_paq.push(["setCustomDimension", 1, window.matchMedia&&window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme:dark)").matches?"dark":"light"]);
_paq.push(["trackPageView"]);
// ...

The event listener

The event provides an addMatomoMethodCall() method. With this method you can insert any JavaScript code, so be careful what you do. In this example, we use the window.matchMedia() function to get the colour scheme currently in use

As in the use case above, the ID of the custom dimension is injected via dependency injection.

EXT:your_extension/Classes/EventListener/AddColourSchemeToMatomoTracking.php

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace YourVendor\YourExtension\EventListener;

use Brotkrueml\MatomoIntegration\Code\JavaScriptCode;
use Brotkrueml\MatomoIntegration\Event\BeforeTrackPageViewEvent;

final class AddColourSchemeToMatomoTracking
{
   private int $customDimensionId;

   public function __construct(int $customDimensionId)
   {
      $this->customDimensionId = $customDimensionId;
   }

   public function __invoke(BeforeTrackPageViewEvent $event): void
   {
      $event->addMatomoMethodCall(
         'setCustomDimension',
         $this->customDimensionId,
         new JavaScriptCode('window.matchMedia&&window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme:dark)").matches?"dark":"light"')
      );
   }
}

Registration of the event listener

EXT:your_extension/Configuration/Services.yaml

YourVendor\YourExtension\EventListener\AddColourSchemeToMatomoTracking:
   arguments:
      $customDimensionId: 1
   tags:
      - name: event.listener
        identifier: 'your-ext/addColourSchemeToMatomoTracking'

Remove person-related parts from URL¶

In one project we have person-related parts in the URL, namely tokens. They are used after submitting a form to request access to downloads or videos. These tokens are unique and can be used to identify a user through other sources and retrieve their Matomo visit data.

To be compliant with the GDPR and to simplify the analysis of URLs (the token is not needed here), the token is stripped from the URL. This can be achieved by setting a custom URL and the BeforeTrackPageViewEvent event of this extension.

The given use case results in the following code. The original URL is something like https://example.com/downloads/detail/some-download/hz6dFgz9/, where hz6dFgz9 is the token to be removed from the logged URL.

// ...
_paq.push(["setCustomUrl", "https://example.com/downloads/detail/some-download/"]);
_paq.push(["trackPageView"]);
// ...

The event listener

The TYPO3 request object returns the information of the current URL, so the last part of the URL must be removed and set for Matomo's setCustomUrl method call.

        EXT:your_extension/Classes/EventListener/RemoveTokenFromUrlForMatomoTracking.php
    

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace YourVendor\YourExtension\EventListener;

use Brotkrueml\MatomoIntegration\Event\BeforeTrackPageViewEvent;
use Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface;

final class RemoveTokenFromUrlForMatomoTracking
{
   public function __invoke(BeforeTrackPageViewEvent $event)
   {
      $request = $event->getRequest();
      if (!isset($request->getQueryParams()['tx_myext']['token']) {
         return;
      }

      $uri = $request->getUri();
      $pathParts = explode('/', $uri->getPath());
      // The path ends with a slash, which we want to preserve, so we
      // need to remove the second last part (which is the token)
      unset($pathParts[count($pathParts) - 2]);
      $tokenRemovedUri = $uri->withPath(implode('/', $pathParts));

      $event->addMatomoMethodCall('setCustomUrl', (string)$tokenRemovedUri);
   }
}

Registration of the event listener

EXT:your_extension/Configuration/Services.yaml

YourVendor\YourExtension\EventListener\RemoveTokenFromUrlForMatomoTracking:
   tags:
      - name: event.listener
        identifier: 'your-ext/removeTokenFromUrlForMatomoTracking'

Extending the script tag¶

Using tracking tools like Matomo within the European Union need special treatments in order to let the customer consent and agree with the tracking. Although Matomo respects the browser's "Do not track" setting, not everyone is aware of it.

Some GDPR tools like klaro.js require special attribute settings within the script tag in order to work.

The event listener

Before the script tag is rendered the event EnrichScriptTagEvent dispatched from the injector. This events allow to register an id, a type and add additional data attributes.

EXT:your_extension/Classes/EventListener/PrepareScriptTagForKlaroJs.php

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

namespace YourVendor\YourExtension\EventListener;

use Brotkrueml\MatomoIntegration\Event\EnrichScriptTagEvent;

final class PrepareScriptTagForKlaroJs
{
   public function __invoke(EnrichScriptTagEvent $event)
   {
      $event->setType('text/plain');
      $event->addDataAttribute('type', 'application/javascript');
      $event->addDataAttribute('name', 'matomo');
   }
}

Registration of the event listener

EXT:your_extension/Configuration/Services.yaml

YourVendor\YourExtension\EventListener\PrepareScriptTagForKlaroJs:
   tags:
      - name: event.listener
        identifier: 'your-ext/prepare-script-for-klaro-js'

Add site search metrics¶

When offering a site search, the main thing you want to know is what users are searching for. Also worth knowing are, for example, the search terms without results or the query time for a search phrase. The blog post Display search metrics from TYPO3 extension ke_search in Matomo illustrates how to achieve this within the extension ke_search. The article can also serve as a blueprint for other search extensions.