UI Telemetry¶

Fennec records UI events using a telemetry framework called UITelemetry.

Some links:

Sessions¶

Sessions are essentially scopes. They are meant to provide context to events; this allows events to be simpler and more reusable. Sessions are usually bound to some component of the UI, some user action with a duration, or some transient state.

For example, a session might be begun when a user begins interacting with a menu, and stopped when the interaction ends. Or a session might encapsulate period of no network connectivity, the first five seconds after the browser launched, the time spent with an active download, or a guest mode session.

Sessions implicitly record the duration of the interaction.

A simple use-case for sessions is the bookmarks panel in about:home. We start a session when the user swipes into the panel, and stop it when they swipe away. This bookmarks session does two things: firstly, it gives scope to any generic event that may occur within the panel (e.g., loading a URL). Secondly, it allows us to figure out how much time users are spending in the bookmarks panel.

To start a session, call Telemetry.startUISession(String sessionName).

sessionName: The name of the session. Session names should be brief, lowercase, and should describe which UI component the user is interacting with. In certain cases where the UI component is dynamic, they could include an ID, essential to identifying that component. An example of this is dynamic home panels: we use session names of the format homepanel:<panel_id> to identify home panel sessions.

To stop a session, call Telemetry.stopUISession(String sessionName, String reason).

sessionName

The name of the open session

reason (Optional)

A descriptive cause for ending the session. It should be brief, lowercase, and generic so it can be reused in different places. Examples reasons are:

switched

The user transitioned to a UI element of equal level.

exit

The user left for an entirely different element.

Events¶

Events capture key occurrences. They should be brief and simple, and should not contain sensitive or excess information. Context for events should come from the session (scope). An event can be created with four fields (via Telemetry.sendUIEvent): action, method, extras, and timestamp.

action: The name of the event. Should be brief and lowercase. If needed, you can make use of namespacing with a ‘.‘ separator. Example event names: panel.switch, panel.enable, panel.disable, panel.install.
method (Optional): Used for user actions that can be performed in many ways. This field specifies the method by which the action was performed. For example, users can add an item to their reading list either by long-tapping the reader icon in the address bar, or from within reader mode. We would use the same event name for both user actions but specify two methods: addressbar and readermode.
extras (Optional): For extra information that may be useful in understanding the event. Make an effort to keep this brief.
timestamp (Optional): The time at which the event occurred. If not specified, this field defaults to the current value of the realtime clock.

Versioning¶

As a we improve on our Telemetry methods, it is foreseeable that our probes will change over time. Different versions of a probe could carry different data or have different interpretations on the server-side. To make it easier for the server to handle these changes, you should add version numbers to your event and session names. An example of a versioned session is homepanel.1; this is version 1 of the homepanel session. This approach should also be applied to event names, an example being: panel.enable.1 and panel.enable.2.

Clock¶

Times are relative to either elapsed realtime (an arbitrary monotonically increasing clock that continues to tick when the device is asleep), or elapsed uptime (which doesn’t tick when the device is in deep sleep). We default to elapsed realtime.

See the documentation in the source for more details.

Dictionary¶

Events¶

action.1: Generic action, usually for tracking menu and toolbar actions.
cancel.1: Cancel a state, action, etc.
cast.1: Start casting a video.
edit.1: Sent when the user edits a top site.
launch.1: Launching (opening) an external application. Note: Only used in JavaScript for now.
loadurl.1: Loading a URL.
locale.browser.reset.1: When the user chooses “System default” in the browser locale picker.
locale.browser.selected.1: When the user chooses a locale in the browser locale picker. The selected locale is provided as the extra.
locale.browser.unselected.1: When the user chose a different locale in the browser locale picker, this event is fired with the previous locale as the extra. If the previous locale could not be determined, “unknown” is provided.
neterror.1: When the user performs actions on the in-content network error page. This should probably be a Session, but it’s difficult to start and stop the session reliably.
panel.hide.1: Hide a built-in home panel.
panel.move.1: Move a home panel up or down.
panel.remove.1: Remove a custom home panel.
panel.setdefault.1: Set default home panel.
panel.show.1: Show a hidden built-in home panel.
pin.1, unpin.1: Sent when the user pinned or unpinned a top site.
policynotification.success.1:true: Sent when a user has accepted the data notification policy. Can be false instead of true if an error occurs.
sanitize.1: Sent when the user chooses to clear private data.
save.1, unsave.1: Saving or unsaving a resource (reader, bookmark, etc.) for viewing later.
search.1: Sent when the user performs a search. Currently used in the search activity.
search.remove.1: Sent when the user removes a search engine.
search.restore.1: Sent when the user restores the search engine configuration back to the built-in configuration.
search.setdefault.1: Sent when the user sets a search engine to be the default.
share.1: Sharing content.
show.1: Sent when a contextual UI element is shown to the user.
undo.1: Sent when performing an undo-style action, like undoing a closed tab.

Methods¶

actionbar: Action triggered from an ActionBar UI.
back: Action triggered from the back button.
banner: Action triggered from a banner (such as HomeBanner).
button: Action triggered from a button. Note: Only used in JavaScript for now.
content: Action triggered from a content page.
contextmenu: Action triggered from a contextmenu. Could be from chrome or content.
dialog: Action triggered from a dialog.
doorhanger: Action triggered from a doorhanger popup prompt.
griditem: Action triggered from a griditem, such as those used in Top Sites panel.
homescreen: Action triggered from a homescreen shortcut icon.
intent: Action triggered from a system Intent, usually sent from the OS.
list: Action triggered from an unmanaged list of items, usually provided by the OS.
listitem: Action triggered from a listitem.
menu: Action triggered from the main menu.
notification: Action triggered from a system notification.
pageaction: Action triggered from a pageaction, displayed in the URL bar.
service: Action triggered from an automatic system making a decision.
settings: Action triggered from a content page.
shareoverlay: Action triggered from a content page.
suggestion: Action triggered from a suggested result, like those from search engines or default tiles.
system: Action triggered from an OS level action, like application foreground / background.
toast: Action triggered from an unobtrusive, temporary notification.
widget: Action triggered from a widget placed on the homescreen.

Sessions¶

awesomescreen.1: Awesomescreen (including frecency search) is active.
firstrun.1: Started the very first time we believe the application has been launched.
frecency.1: Awesomescreen frecency search is active.
homepanel.1: Started when a user enters a given home panel. Session name is dynamic, encoded as “homepanel.1:<panel_id>” Built-in home panels have fixed IDs
reader.1: Reader viewer becomes active in the foreground.
searchactivity.1: Started when the user launches the search activity (onStart) and stopped when they leave the search activity.
settings.1: Settings activity is active.