The program is a tool for analyzing web site log files
You can go to file | open log file, then go to 'show list' and choose a list from the menu, these are so named 'contexts'. Or, even better, create a new project (file | new project), set its properties (like domain and log file(s) to open) and then use the 'show list' menu.
Every window can represent a 'context' (like files, referrers etc). You can have many views simultaneously open. You can open new views by going to 'show list' menu, or pressing Ctrl+N, or using Window | New menu command.
You can view statistics by 'contexts' for example 'files', 'referrers' etc. You can sort the lists by clicking a column heading. Most of them are self-explanatory (I hope) except:
Indirect referrers. If someone visits page "A" on your website from google.com, then goes to page "B" and then to "C" (all on your domain), then for all those pages A, B, C an Indirect referrer is "google.com". And now, by going to "Indirect referrers" context, you will see for example how many times (and for how many visitors) "google.com" was an indirect referrer for page C (i.e. how many visitors came from "google.com", went to other pages, to finally open page C). This is good if you'd like to know how many visitors from given referrer finally open given page.
Using my website as an example: lots of visitors go to one of my "product" page (e.g. Ka Log Analyzer application page) and then download the program (or not). Let's say that I'd like to know how many visitors came from "Software Portal X" site and downloaded the application, and how many visitors came from "Software Portal Y" and downloaded the application (setup file). Downloading the application is my "goal target" and it determines the so called "conversion rate", in other examples, that would be purchasing something (some referrer->opening product page->purchasing the product) rather than downloading an application.
Anyway, looking only at (direct) referrers isn't very helpful, that's where 'indirect referrers' come in. I can look at them, find the setup file on the 'file' list, and see how many times "Software Portal X" was the indirect referrer for the file, and how many times "Software Portal Y" was.
You can filter lists by using the filter windows (located on the left of the lists). You can filter by 'files', 'referrers' and 'IPs'. All the stats are shown in certain context and filtering. To enter more that one filter, separate them with newline, eg. to show only those files which were accessed from Google and MSN, first open ''files' context, and then enter this into the 'referrers' filter:
http://*google.*
http://*msn.*
Which means: show only those entries, which referrer matches "http://*google.*"or "http://*msn.*" Notice, that '*' means 'any number of characters' so in our example, referrers from "http://www.google.es" and "http://google.com" and "http://anything.google.anything" will match the criteria.
By preceding the filter with "! " (exclamation mark and a space) you can apply a NOT operator, that is, a file/referrer/IP must not be... to be included. For example put these lines in the 'file filter' edit box:
! *.gif
! *.jpg
This means to NOT show files ending with .gif or .jpg. You can mix the two types, e.g. in files filter:
*index*
! *index.xml
means: yes, show all files having "index" somewhere in their URLs but not those ending with "index.xml"
All the rest is self-explanatory, I hope.
Tools | Paths... menu command. You can find out how many visitors viewed page X, then page Y, then page Z... etc. Simply enter the pages (one below another) and press 'Analyze' button. Examples (in the edit box enter):
/index.php
/page1.php
And press 'Analyze' you will see how many visitors started at any page(s), then viewed /index.php, then again viewed another page (or not), to finally open /page1.php. You will also see the list of those visitors. As you can see this tool shows visitors who accessed given pages, in the given order, but not necessarily exactly one by one (they could visit other pages between the given ones).
Just like in the above 'views' (filtering) you can use * to specify a part of an URL (file name), e.g. "*purchase.php*" will match any pages with "purchase.php" in their URL's. You can also use ! to say: not ... page. See filtering above.
In the 'Paths tool' you can activate the 'strict mode' (press 'Analyze' again). This means that the tool must show only visitors who accessed given files (pages) in exactly the same way as entered (a page after a page). This probably isn't very useful, because after visiting e.g. index.php, there are lots of other files accessed by the visitor - like image, css (style) or javascript files. The tool tries to exclude them when analyzing but it doesn't always work, that's why 'strict mode' is inactive by default.
In this mode you can enter "**" (without quotes) to define any page(s). Examples (in the edit box enter):
/index.php
/page1.php
In 'strict mode' you'll see visitors who started at /index.php (that's the very first page the visitor accessed), and then accessed directly /page1.php. As mentioned above you won't see many visitors who theoretically should be there, because after accessing /index.php file they probably are accessing lots of files this page includes/uses (like image files).
The "**" trick. ** simply matches any page (or pages), examples:
**
/index.php
/page1.php
In strict mode, this will show visitors who started at any page, then access any number of pages (the ** trick), then accessed /index.php, and then directly /page1.php.
**
/index.php
**
/page1.php
In strict mode, this will show visitors who started at any page, then accessed any pages (the ** trick), then went to /index.php, then again access any pages to finally open page1.php.
Using ** in non-strict mode (the default mode) is unnecessary, because in this case the tool works just like the ** line was everywhere, at the beginning, between URLs, and at the very end.
You can drag&drop log files and projects to the main window to analyze them (you can even drag&drop entire folders, all log files in those folders will be analyzed).
If you like this application, and if you want it to be still developed, please consider donating, thanks!
If you have any comments/ideas, or you just want to say that you like the program, visit a forum or contact me: http://www.konradp.com/contact.htm