Features

• (optional) Automatic tracking of all web requests - no additional code needed in your project

• JavaScript function for tracking client-side actions

• Separate reporting of authenticated and anonymous sessions

• Shows top platforms, top user-agents (using user-agents), top viewport sizes, and new users, for each month

• Detects and hides bot traffic

• Tracking cookies can be disabled (you just won’t see viewport size data)

• All data is stored in a single table with no relations to your project’s tables

Requirements

Django 4.2+ and Python 3.8+

Installation

1. pip install django-silent-mammoth-whistle

2. Add to INSTALLED_APPS setting - ideally just above the main app:

   INSTALLED_APPS = [
           ...,
           "silent_mammoth_whistle",
           ...,
   ]

3. Add middleware. At the end is fine:

   MIDDLEWARE = [
           ...,
           'silent_mammoth_whistle.middleware.SilentMammothWhistleMiddleware',
   ]

4. Include the silent mammoth whistle URLconf in your project urls.py. The URL (e.g. /mammoth) can be anything you like:

   urlpatterns = [
           ...,
           path('/mammoth', include('silent_mammoth_whistle.urls')),
           ...,
   ]

5. Add <script src="{% static 'silent_mammoth_whistle/js/whistle.js' %}"></script> to your templates

6. Run migrations ./manage.py migrate silent_mammoth_whistle

Configuration

All configuration is optional. The default configuration will track request methods, paths (urls), and response status codes.

Usage

By default, silent mammoth whistle will record all web requests (specifically the HTTP method, response code, and path/URL).

You can also record additional data for a request.

request.whistle.request('put a string here')

You can record as much data as you like, and you can make as many of these request.whistle.request() calls as you like. Silent mammoth whistle is super-simple and all data is cast to strings using str() before saving. Silent mammoth whistle will merge the strings from all the calls into a single string, separated by a tab when rendered.

Practical example time! This line will record the fields present in a POST request. This could be useful if your form has many optional fields and you want to know which ones were included by the user.

request.whistle.request('fields=' + ', '.join(request.POST.dict().keys()))

When viewing session details in silent mammoth whistle, you’ll see 3 columns: time, request, and response. Request is the obvious column to use, but you might like to separate tracking of what the user requested from how the server responded. E.g.

request.whistle.response('Fields in error = ' + ', '.join(form.errors.keys()))

These calls all start with request. because silent mammoth whistle adds a whistle object to the standard Django request object.

JavaScript API

The JavaScript API is similar to the above.

whistle('Edit dialog box open')

whistle takes an unlimited number of arguments. Each argument is added to the whistle.

Bot detection

Bot traffic is recorded and then hidden when viewing whistles.