About

The Peach Collector framework for iOS provides simple functionalities to facilitate the collect of events. PeachCollector helps you by managing a queue of events serialized until they are successfully published.

Compatibility

The library is suitable for applications running on iOS 12 and above or tvOS 12 and above. The project is meant to be opened with the latest Xcode version (currently Xcode 12).

Installation

Install via Carthage

Carthage is a decentralized dependency manager that builds your dependencies and provides you with binary frameworks.

You can install Carthage with Homebrew using the following command:

$ brew update
$ brew install carthage

To integrate PeachCollector into your Xcode project using Carthage, specify it in your Cartfile:

github "ebu/peach-collector-ios"

Run carthage update to build the framework and drag the built PeachCollector.framework into your Xcode project.

Install via Swift Package Manager

SPM integration is available since version 1.2.0

• In XCode menu, click on File > Swift Packages > Add Package Dependency...
• Enter the project url: https://github.com/ebu/peach-collector-ios.git and click on the Next button.
• Select the master branch and click on the Next button.
• Click on the Finish button.

Usage

When you want to use classes or functions provided by the library in your code, you must import it from your source files first.

Framework integration

Import the global header file in your AppDelegate using:

Objective-C

@import PeachCollector;

Swift

import PeachCollector

Initializing the collector

PeachCollector is automatically initialized at the launch of the app. You just need a PeachCollectorPublisher to start sending the queued events. You can either provide a SiteKey or a full URL address in order to configure the publisher.

Objective-C

PeachCollectorPublisher *publisher = [[PeachCollectorPublisher alloc] initWithSiteKey:@"zzebu00000000017"];
[PeachCollector setPublisher:publisher withUniqueName:@"My Publisher"];

Swift

let publisher = PeachCollectorPublisher.init(siteKey: "zzebu00000000017")
PeachCollector.setPublisher(publisher, withUniqueName: "My Publisher")

Configuring the collector

• A device ID can be defined using the deviceID PeachCollector property. If set, it will override the default value (vendor ID)
• A user ID can be defined using the userID PeachCollector property.
• If userIDs are generated automatically for anonymous user. You can use the userIsLoggedIn flag to define if the user is logged in or not
• For debugging purpose, a isUnitTesting flag is available. If true, notifications will be sent by the collector (see PeachColletorNotifications.h)
• The collector retrieves the identifierForVendor to set as the device ID in order to track users that do not have user IDs. People can choose to limit tracking on their devices and this ID will not be sent to Peach. In this case, if there is no userID defined, no events will be recorder or sent. Unless you set the shouldCollectAnonymousEvents flag to true. Default is false.
• Optionally, you can define an implementationVersion by setting a PeachCollector property.
• maximumStorageDays is the maximum number of days an event should be kept in the queue (if it could not be sent).
• maximumStoredEvents is the maximum number of events that should be kept in the queue.
• An appID can be defined if you don't want to use the default value (which is the bundle ID of the app).

Objective-C

PeachCollector.userID = @"123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000";
PeachCollector.appID = @"test.app.id";
[PeachCollector sharedCollector].isUnitTesting = YES;
[PeachCollector sharedCollector].shouldCollectAnonymousEvents = YES;
PeachCollector.implementationVersion = @"1";
PeachCollector.maximumStorageDays = 5;
PeachCollector.maximumStoredEvents = 1000;

Swift

PeachCollector.userID = "123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000";
PeachCollector.appID = "test.app.id";
PeachCollector.shared.isUnitTesting = true;
PeachCollector.shared.shouldCollectAnonymousEvents = true;
PeachCollector.implementationVersion = "1";

Configuring a Publisher

A publisher needs to be initialized with a SiteKey or a full URL address as seen previously. But it has 4 others properties that are worth mentioning :

interval: The interval in seconds at which events are sent to the server (interval starts after the first event is queued). Default is 20 seconds.

maxEventsPerBatch: Number of events queued that triggers the publishing process even if the desired interval hasn't been reached. Default is 20 events.

maxEventsPerBatchAfterOfflineSession: Maximum number of events that can be sent in a single batch. Especially useful after a long offline session. Default is 1000 events.

gotBackPolicy: How the publisher should behave after an offline period. Available options are SendAll (sends requests with maxEventsPerBatchAfterOfflineSession continuously), SendBatchesRandomly (separates requests by a random delay between 0 and 60 seconds).

Adding custom data to a Publisher's client information

Everytime events are sent to the defined sitekey or server, the payload (containing the JSON description of the events) has a single description of the client used. You can add any custom fields to this client description and it will be sent in every request.

Objective-C

[publisher addCustomClientString:@"France" forKey:@"country"];
[publisher addCustomClientNumber:@(YES) forKey:@"is_geolocalized"];

Swift

publisher.addCustomClientString("France", forKey: "country")
publisher.addCustomClientNumber(true, forKey: "is_geolocalized")

Functions are also available to retrieve a custom field value and remove a custom field.

Setting up a remote configuration

PeachCollector allows you to set up a remote configuration URL. Remote configurations are simple JSON files with different fields to configure the publisher. For that, you need to provide the URL at the initialisation stage of the publisher.

Objective-C

PeachCollectorPublisher *publisher = [[PeachCollectorPublisher alloc] initWithSiteKey:@"zzebu00000000017" remoteConfiguration:@"https://peach-static.ebu.io/zzebu/config_example.json"];
[PeachCollector setPublisher:publisher withUniqueName:@"My Publisher"];

Swift

let publisher = PeachCollectorPublisher.init(siteKey: "zzebu00000000017", remoteConfiguration: "https://peach-static.ebu.io/zzebu/config_example.json")
PeachCollector.setPublisher(publisher, withUniqueName: "My Publisher")

In this remote configuration, you can for example define the interval (at which events are sent), the batch size (number of events per request) or the type of events that should be sent by the publisher.

Flushing and Cleaning

Flush is called when the application is about to go to background, or if a special type of event is sent while in background (events that will potentially push the application into an inactive state). It will try to send all the queued events (even if the maximum number of events hasn't been reached)

Clean will simply remove all current queued events. It is never called in the life cycle of the framework.

Flush and Clean can be called manually.

Objective-C

[PeachCollector flush];
[PeachCollector clean];

Swift

PeachCollector.flush();
PeachCollector.clean()

Special type of events

Some events can be queued when the app is in background but still active. For example, when playing an audio media and controlling the playback directly on the device's lock screen. Some of those events that can occur during a playback will trigger a flush of all queued events. This mechanism is implemented to make sure events are published before the app becomes totally inactive.

For now, events that trigger this flush are media_pause and media_stop events. You can add another type of event to this list:

Objective-C

[PeachCollector addFlushableEventType:@"media_error"]

Swift

PeachCollector.addFlushableEventType("media_error")

Recording an Event

Objective-C

[PeachCollectorEvent sendRecommendationHitWithID:@"reco01"
					  itemID:@"media01"
                                        hitIndex:1
                                    appSectionID:@"news/videos"
                                          source:nil
                                       component:nil];

Swift

PeachCollectorEvent.sendRecommendationHit(withID: "reco00",
					  itemID: "media01",
					     hit: 1,
				    appSectionID: "news/videos",
					  source: nil,
				       component: nil)

Setting up a player tracker

To track a player automatically, you just need to provide the AVPlayer instance and information about the item that is being played. You can provide information about the item or leave empty. The tracker will only update (or create if not provided) the props part of the events with data from the player You can also stop tracking an item manually.

Objective-C

[PeachPlayerTracker setPlayer:self.videoPlayer];
[PeachPlayerTracker trackItemWithID:@"video0001"
                            context:nil
                              props:nil
                           metadata:nil];
[PeachPlayerTracker clearCurrentItem];                           

Swift

PeachPlayerTracker.setPlayer(videoPlayer)
PeachPlayerTracker.trackItem(withID:"video0001", context:nil, props:nil, metadata:nil)
PeachPlayerTracker.clearCurrentItem()

Demo projects

To see examples of how the framework works, two demo projects (in Objective-C and Swift) for iOS and one demo for tvOS are available in the Xcode project.