Comments on: Google Analytics Supported in Silverlight Analytics Framework

By: Michael S. Scherotter

Michael S. Scherotter — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:37:59 +0000

We already thought of that.
If you create a Blend project for WPF, you’ll notice that there are analytics behaviors for WPF as well. They is no design-time assembly yet but they are in the Behaviors section of the Assets pane. The source code for the WPF version (which is 99% the same as Silverlight) is in CodePlex and ships in the framework as well. There is a TrackApplication behavior for WPF which does similar functions as the WebApplicationService.
Look here C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework\wpf

I guess your next question is whether the GoogleAnalytics would work there – we can do a build of it for WPF but we want to make sure it will work in non-web-page context first. Contact me offline and we can have a discussion with Google about it.

By: Rob Paveza

Rob Paveza — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:32:34 +0000

Michael, thanks for the invitation to comment!

The only thing that is particularly disappointing to me is that the API seems to be focused on Silverlight. Because of its service-oriented nature, it could easily have been generically .NET, and then you could have added a Silverlight or WPF or Windows Forms or any other basic lifetime management dependency. As it is, though, WebAnalyticsService implements IApplicationService and IApplicationLifetimeAware, which creates a specific dependency on Silverlight (and possibly to WPF). Using this API, though, I could have added an analytics logging mechanism to a web service, or perform similar tracking in a WinForms application.

Perhaps I’ll create a fork.

By: Michael S. Scherotter

Michael S. Scherotter — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:19:16 +0000

We’d love any feedback that you have on using the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework – use the discussion forum on the CodePlex site – or contact me directly.
Thanks,
Michael