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• How to create a widget – Introducing the Piwik Platform

  4 septembre 2014, par Thomas Steur — Development

  This is the next post of our blog series where we introduce the capabilities of the Piwik platform (our previous post was How to create a scheduled task in Piwik). This time you’ll learn how to create a new widget. For this tutorial you will need to have basic knowledge of PHP.

  What is a widget in Piwik ?

  Widgets can be added to your dashboards or exported via a URL to embed it on any page. Most widgets in Piwik represent a report but a widget can display anything. For instance a RSS feed of your corporate news. If you prefer to have most of your business relevant data in one dashboard why not display the number of offline sales, the latest stock price, or other key metrics together with your analytics data ?

  Getting started

  In this series of posts, we assume that you have already set up your development environment. If not, visit the Piwik Developer Zone where you’ll find the tutorial Setting up Piwik.

  To summarize the things you have to do to get setup :

  • Install Piwik (for instance via git).
  • Activate the developer mode : ./console development:enable --full.
  • Generate a plugin : ./console generate:plugin --name="MyWidgetPlugin". There should now be a folder plugins/MyWidgetPlugin.
  • And activate the created plugin under Settings => Plugins.

  Let’s start creating a widget

  We start by using the Piwik Console to create a widget template :

  ./console generate:widget

  The command will ask you to enter the name of the plugin the widget should belong to. I will simply use the above chosen plugin name “MyWidgetPlugin”. It will ask you for a widget category as well. You can select any existing category, for instance “Visitors”, “Live !” or “Actions”, or you can define a new category, for instance your company name. There should now be a file plugins/MyWidgetPlugin/Widgets.php which contains already some examples to get you started easily :

  class Widgets extends \Piwik\Plugin\Widgets
  {
      /**
       * Here you can define the category the widget belongs to. You can reuse any existing widget category or define your own category.
       * @var string
       */
      protected $category = 'ExampleCompany';
   
      /**
       * Here you can add one or multiple widgets. You can add a widget by calling the method "addWidget()" and pass the name of the widget as well as a method name that should be called to render the widget. The method can be defined either directly here in this widget class or in the controller in case you want to reuse the same action for instance in the menu etc.
       */
      protected function init()
      {
          $this->addWidget('Example Widget Name', $method = 'myExampleWidget');
          $this->addWidget('Example Widget 2',    $method = 'myExampleWidget', $params = array('myparam' => 'myvalue'));
      }
   
      /**
       * This method renders a widget as defined in "init()". It's on you how to generate the content of the widget. As long as you return a string everything is fine. You can use for instance a "Piwik\View" to render a twig template. In such a case don't forget to create a twig template (eg. myViewTemplate.twig) in the "templates" directory of your plugin.
       *
       * @return string
       */
      public function myExampleWidget()
      {
          $view = new View('@MyWidgetPlugin/myViewTemplate');
          return $view->render();
      }
  }
  Télécharger

  As you might have noticed in the generated template we put emphasis on adding comments to explain you directly how to continue and where to get more information. Ideally this saves you some time and you don’t even have to search for more information on our developer pages. The category is defined in the property $category and can be changed at any time. Starting from Piwik 2.6.0 the generator will directly create a translation key if necessary to make it easy to translate the category into any language. Translations will be a topic in one of our future posts until then you can explore this feature on our Internationalization guide.

  A simple example

  We can define one or multiple widgets in the init method by calling addWidget($widgetName, $methodName). To do so we define the name of a widget which will be seen by your users as well as the name of the method that shall render the widget.

  protected $category = 'Example Company';
  
  
  
  public function init()
  
  {
  
      // Registers a widget named 'News' under the category 'Example Company'. 
  
      // The method 'myCorporateNews' will be used to render the widget.
  
      $this->addWidget('News', $method = 'myCorporateNews'); 
  
  }
  
  
  
  public function myCorporateNews()
  
  {
  
      return file_get_contents('http://example.com/news');
  
  }

  This example would display the content of the specified URL within the widget as defined in the method myCorporateNews. It’s on you how to generate the content of the widget. Any string returned by this method will be displayed within the widget. You can use for example a View to render a Twig template. For simplification we are fetching the content from another site. A more complex version would cache this content for faster performance. Caching and views will be covered in one of our future posts as well.

  

  Did you know ? To make your life as a developer as stress-free as possible the platform checks whether the registered method actually exists and whether the method is public. If not, Piwik will display a notification in the UI and advice you with the next step.

  Checking permissions

  Often you do not want to have the content of a widget visible to everyone. You can check for permissions by using one of our many convenient methods which all start with \Piwik\Piwik::checkUser*. Just to introduce some of them :

  // Make sure the current user has super user access
  
  \Piwik\Piwik::checkUserHasSuperUserAccess(); 
  
  
  
  // Make sure the current user is logged in and not anonymous
  
  \Piwik\Piwik::checkUserIsNotAnonymous(); 

  And here is an example how you can use it within your widget :

  public function myCorporateNews()
  
  {
  
      // Make sure there is an idSite URL parameter
  
      $idSite = Common::getRequestVar('idSite', null, 'int');
  
  
  
      // Make sure the user has at least view access for the specified site. This is useful if you want to display data that is related to the specified site.
  
      Piwik::checkUserHasViewAccess($idSite); 
  
  
  
      $siteUrl = \Piwik\Site::getMainUrlFor($idSite);
  
  
  
      return file_get_contents($siteUrl . '/news');
  
  }

  In case any condition is not met an exception will be thrown and an error message will be presented to the user explaining that he does not have enough permissions. You’ll find the documentation for those methods in the Piwik class reference.

  How to test a widget

  After you have created your widgets you are surely wondering how to test it. First, you should write a unit or integration test which we will cover in one of our future blog posts. Just one hint : You can use the command ./console generate:test to create a test. To manually test a widget you can add a widget to a dashboard or export it.

  Publishing your Plugin on the Marketplace

  In case you want to share your widgets with other Piwik users you can do this by pushing your plugin to a public GitHub repository and creating a tag. Easy as that. Read more about how to distribute a plugin.

  Advanced features

  Isn’t it easy to create a widget ? We never even created a file ! Of course, based on our API design principle “The complexity of our API should never exceed the complexity of your use case.” you can accomplish more if you want : You can clarify parameters that will be passed to your widget, you can create a method in the Controller instead of the Widget class to make the same method also reusable for adding it to the menu, you can assign different categories to different widgets, you can remove any widgets that were added by the Piwik core or other plugins and more.

  Would you like to know more about widgets ? Go to our Widgets class reference in the Piwik Developer Zone.

  If you have any feedback regarding our APIs or our guides in the Developer Zone feel free to send it to us.

• How to create a widget – Introducing the Piwik Platform

  4 septembre 2014, par Thomas Steur — Development

  This is the next post of our blog series where we introduce the capabilities of the Piwik platform (our previous post was How to create a scheduled task in Piwik). This time you’ll learn how to create a new widget. For this tutorial you will need to have basic knowledge of PHP.

  What is a widget in Piwik ?

  Widgets can be added to your dashboards or exported via a URL to embed it on any page. Most widgets in Piwik represent a report but a widget can display anything. For instance a RSS feed of your corporate news. If you prefer to have most of your business relevant data in one dashboard why not display the number of offline sales, the latest stock price, or other key metrics together with your analytics data ?

  Getting started

  In this series of posts, we assume that you have already set up your development environment. If not, visit the Piwik Developer Zone where you’ll find the tutorial Setting up Piwik.

  To summarize the things you have to do to get setup :

  • Install Piwik (for instance via git).
  • Activate the developer mode : ./console development:enable --full.
  • Generate a plugin : ./console generate:plugin --name="MyWidgetPlugin". There should now be a folder plugins/MyWidgetPlugin.
  • And activate the created plugin under Settings => Plugins.

  Let’s start creating a widget

  We start by using the Piwik Console to create a widget template :

  ./console generate:widget

  The command will ask you to enter the name of the plugin the widget should belong to. I will simply use the above chosen plugin name “MyWidgetPlugin”. It will ask you for a widget category as well. You can select any existing category, for instance “Visitors”, “Live !” or “Actions”, or you can define a new category, for instance your company name. There should now be a file plugins/MyWidgetPlugin/Widgets.php which contains already some examples to get you started easily :

  class Widgets extends \Piwik\Plugin\Widgets
  {
      /**
       * Here you can define the category the widget belongs to. You can reuse any existing widget category or define your own category.
       * @var string
       */
      protected $category = 'ExampleCompany';
   
      /**
       * Here you can add one or multiple widgets. You can add a widget by calling the method "addWidget()" and pass the name of the widget as well as a method name that should be called to render the widget. The method can be defined either directly here in this widget class or in the controller in case you want to reuse the same action for instance in the menu etc.
       */
      protected function init()
      {
          $this->addWidget('Example Widget Name', $method = 'myExampleWidget');
          $this->addWidget('Example Widget 2',    $method = 'myExampleWidget', $params = array('myparam' => 'myvalue'));
      }
   
      /**
       * This method renders a widget as defined in "init()". It's on you how to generate the content of the widget. As long as you return a string everything is fine. You can use for instance a "Piwik\View" to render a twig template. In such a case don't forget to create a twig template (eg. myViewTemplate.twig) in the "templates" directory of your plugin.
       *
       * @return string
       */
      public function myExampleWidget()
      {
          $view = new View('@MyWidgetPlugin/myViewTemplate');
          return $view->render();
      }
  }
  Télécharger

  As you might have noticed in the generated template we put emphasis on adding comments to explain you directly how to continue and where to get more information. Ideally this saves you some time and you don’t even have to search for more information on our developer pages. The category is defined in the property $category and can be changed at any time. Starting from Piwik 2.6.0 the generator will directly create a translation key if necessary to make it easy to translate the category into any language. Translations will be a topic in one of our future posts until then you can explore this feature on our Internationalization guide.

  A simple example

  We can define one or multiple widgets in the init method by calling addWidget($widgetName, $methodName). To do so we define the name of a widget which will be seen by your users as well as the name of the method that shall render the widget.

  protected $category = 'Example Company';
  
  
  
  public function init()
  
  {
  
      // Registers a widget named 'News' under the category 'Example Company'. 
  
      // The method 'myCorporateNews' will be used to render the widget.
  
      $this->addWidget('News', $method = 'myCorporateNews'); 
  
  }
  
  
  
  public function myCorporateNews()
  
  {
  
      return file_get_contents('http://example.com/news');
  
  }

  This example would display the content of the specified URL within the widget as defined in the method myCorporateNews. It’s on you how to generate the content of the widget. Any string returned by this method will be displayed within the widget. You can use for example a View to render a Twig template. For simplification we are fetching the content from another site. A more complex version would cache this content for faster performance. Caching and views will be covered in one of our future posts as well.

  

  Did you know ? To make your life as a developer as stress-free as possible the platform checks whether the registered method actually exists and whether the method is public. If not, Piwik will display a notification in the UI and advice you with the next step.

  Checking permissions

  Often you do not want to have the content of a widget visible to everyone. You can check for permissions by using one of our many convenient methods which all start with \Piwik\Piwik::checkUser*. Just to introduce some of them :

  // Make sure the current user has super user access
  
  \Piwik\Piwik::checkUserHasSuperUserAccess(); 
  
  
  
  // Make sure the current user is logged in and not anonymous
  
  \Piwik\Piwik::checkUserIsNotAnonymous(); 

  And here is an example how you can use it within your widget :

  public function myCorporateNews()
  
  {
  
      // Make sure there is an idSite URL parameter
  
      $idSite = Common::getRequestVar('idSite', null, 'int');
  
  
  
      // Make sure the user has at least view access for the specified site. This is useful if you want to display data that is related to the specified site.
  
      Piwik::checkUserHasViewAccess($idSite); 
  
  
  
      $siteUrl = \Piwik\Site::getMainUrlFor($idSite);
  
  
  
      return file_get_contents($siteUrl . '/news');
  
  }

  In case any condition is not met an exception will be thrown and an error message will be presented to the user explaining that he does not have enough permissions. You’ll find the documentation for those methods in the Piwik class reference.

  How to test a widget

  After you have created your widgets you are surely wondering how to test it. First, you should write a unit or integration test which we will cover in one of our future blog posts. Just one hint : You can use the command ./console generate:test to create a test. To manually test a widget you can add a widget to a dashboard or export it.

  Publishing your Plugin on the Marketplace

  In case you want to share your widgets with other Piwik users you can do this by pushing your plugin to a public GitHub repository and creating a tag. Easy as that. Read more about how to distribute a plugin.

  Advanced features

  Isn’t it easy to create a widget ? We never even created a file ! Of course, based on our API design principle “The complexity of our API should never exceed the complexity of your use case.” you can accomplish more if you want : You can clarify parameters that will be passed to your widget, you can create a method in the Controller instead of the Widget class to make the same method also reusable for adding it to the menu, you can assign different categories to different widgets, you can remove any widgets that were added by the Piwik core or other plugins and more.

  Would you like to know more about widgets ? Go to our Widgets class reference in the Piwik Developer Zone.

  If you have any feedback regarding our APIs or our guides in the Developer Zone feel free to send it to us.

• CJEU rules US cloud servers don’t comply with GDPR and what this means for web analytics

  17 juillet 2020, par Jake Thornton
  Breaking news : On July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that any cloud services hosted in the US are incapable of complying with the GDPR and EU privacy laws.

  In August 2016, the EU-US Privacy Shield framework came into effect, which “protects the fundamental rights of anyone in the EU whose personal data is transferred to the United States for commercial purposes. It allows the free transfer of data to companies that are certified in the US under the Privacy Shield.” – European Commission website

  However after today’s CJEU ruling, this Privacy Shield framework became invalidated due to significant differences between EU and US privacy laws.

  European privacy law activist Max Schrems summarises with “The Court clarified for a second time now that there is a clash between EU privacy law and US surveillance law. As the EU will not change its fundamental rights to please the NSA, the only way to overcome this clash is for the US to introduce solid privacy rights for all people – including foreigners. Surveillance reform thereby becomes crucial for the business interests of Silicon Valley.” – noyb website

  Today’s ruling also continues to spark concern into the legitimacy of US privacy laws which doesn’t fully protect people’s personal data when hosted on cloud servers based in the US.

  

  How will this affect you ?

  For any business operating a website in the EU or if you have traffic coming to your website from EU visitors, you need to know what data you’re capturing and where this data is being stored.

  Here’s what Maja Smoltczyk (Berlin’s Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information) says :

  Controllers who transfer personal data to the USA, especially when using cloud-based services, are now required to switch immediately to service providers based in the European Union or a country that can
  ensure an adequate level of data protection. The CJEU has made it refreshingly clear that data exports are not just financial decisions, as people’s fundamental rights must also be considered as a matter of priority. This ruling will put
  an end to the transfer of personal data to the USA for the sake of convenience or to cut costs.

  The controller is you (not Google) and by transferring data to the US you are at risk of being fined up to €20 million or 4% of your annual worldwide turnover for not being GDPR compliant. 

  It’s you who has to take action, not Google or other US companies. The court’s decision has immediate effect. While we assume there will be a grace period, companies should act now as finding and implementing alternatives solution can take a while. 

  Can no data be exported outside the EU anymore ?

  Data can still be exported outside the EU if an adequate level of data protection is guaranteed. This is the case for some trading partners of the EU such as New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, and Canada. They have been certified by the EU as having a comparable level of privacy protection and therefore demonstrate adequacy at a country level.

  Necessary data can still flow to countries like the US too. This is for example the case when someone books a hotel in the US or when sending an email to someone in the US. Backups for disaster recovery and most other reasons don’t qualify as necessary.

  In all other cases you can still send data to countries like the US if you get explicit and informed consent from a user. Meaning the user has been informed about all possible risks of sending the data to the US and who can access the data (for example the US government).

  How this affects Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager users

  If your website is using Google Analytics, the safest bet is to deactivate it immediately. Otherwise, you must ask for consent from everyone who visits your website and inform them that the data will be processed in the United States under less strict privacy laws and all associated risks. If you don’t, you could be liable to privacy law infringements and face being fined for not complying with the GDPR. This also applies to Google Tag Manager as it transfers the IP address to the US which is considered personal data under the GDPR.

  Consent needs to be :

  • Freely given (the user must have a choice to not give consent and be able to opt out at any time) 
  • Informed (you need to disclose who is processing the data, what data is processed, where the data will be stored and how to opt out) 
  • Specific (consent is only valid for the specific informed purpose) 
  • Unambiguous (for example pre-ticked boxes or similar aren’t allowed)

  

  If users don’t give you consent, you are not allowed to track them using Google Analytics or any other US based cloud solution.

  Update August 19, 2020

  A month after this ruling, over 100 complaints have been filed against websites for continuing to send data to the US via Google Analytics or Facebook, by the European privacy campaign group noyb. It’s clear Google and Facebook fall under US surveillance laws such as FISA 702 and the court clearly ruled these companies cannot rely on SCCs to transfer data to the US. Anyone still using Google Analytics is now at risk of facing fines and compensation damages. 

  How this affects Matomo users

  Our cloud servers are based in Germany.

  Matomo On-Premise users choose the location of their data themselves. If the servers are located in the EU nothing changes. If the servers are located outside the EU and the website targets EU users and tracks personal data, then you need to assess whether you are required to ask for tracking consent.

  If the data is stored inside the EU you can use Matomo without asking for any consent and you can continue tracking users even if they reject a consent screen which greatly increases the quality of your data.

  Want to avoid informing users about transferring their data to the US and all associated risks ?

  Try Matomo now for free ! No credit card required.

  Download Matomo