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Recording User Activity [message #717991]

Mon, 22 August 2011 19:44

Eclipse User

Hi all, as part of my research towards my PhD I am wanting to record how people move about in their code and thought that the best way to do this was to build a plugin for Eclipse. I want to be clear; I am not (currently) interested in peoples use of navigation functionality like open declaration and the package explorer but am more interested in statistics such as how long people spend `inside` a certain method/class/statement and how often they leave one of these members to construct another and then return (for example, start writing a method, leave to create a field, finish method by using field).

There are two ways I can see getting results I would like; either literally count seconds people spend at a certain location of code or count key presses at a certain location. Ultimately I would like both as I think each could provide valuable insights for me (second counting could show long pauses where key presses could show information on auto-complete etc).

Anyway, I don't want to put you to sleep, so to the point. I am new to building Eclipse plugins and was wondering if anyone knew a good starting point for me based on my explanation of what I want to do; alternatively maybe someone knows of a plugin out there that does this or similar? I have read through some eclipse presentations (What-is-Eclipse-and-Eclipse-RCP-3.2.6.ppt and JDT_fundamentals.ppt) to help me get a grasp on some fundamentals but can't progress further. I have also had a look at the extension points provided by JDT (from the JDT Plugin Development Guide) and can't stop anything that looks suitable.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide help.
Bryce

Re: Recording User Activity [message #1773625 is a reply to message #717991]

Sun, 01 October 2017 07:14

Eclipse User

Hi there,

Just saw this as I also looking towards recording activity using eclipse plugins. May I ask?How was it?Did you manage to solve it?

Re: Recording User Activity [message #1774054 is a reply to message #717991]

Mon, 09 October 2017 19:58

Eclipse User

Hello Nadhratunnaim Nasarudin.

Sorry for the delay in the reply. I have had a bit of a mission finding the code I used for this. In the end I wouldn't say I came up with a satisfactory solution. To supplement the recording of user activity via an Eclipse plugin, I ended up capturing video. Hopefully this will be useful for you.

It has been a long while since I looked at this code, but from what I can tell it mostly hangs on:

Instantiating an IPartListener object and supplying an implementation for partActivated
Adding that IPartListener to the active workbench window with the command PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow().getPartService().addPartListener(...)
Creating a range of listeners to respond to different key and mouse presses
These listeners extended the listener class from SWT as well as appropriate classes from what appears to be a 3rd party Java application
Not really sure, but i think it was this: https://github.com/kristian/system-hook
These listeners where then added to the display with Display.getCurrent().addFilter(..)
At this point it is just a matter of recording the anonymized data in a log file.

Good luck with your work.
Cheers, Bryce

Re: Recording User Activity [message #1774206 is a reply to message #1774054]

Wed, 11 October 2017 13:10

Eclipse User

Hi Bryce,

Thank you very much for your respond. This is very helpful. Good luck and all the best to you too..

Nadhra

Re: Recording User Activity [message #1774207 is a reply to message #1774054]

Wed, 11 October 2017 13:11

Eclipse User

Hi Bryce,

Thank you very much for your respond. This is very helpful. Good luck and all the best to you too..

Nadhra

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