How to log the link click which make form submission?

Question

I wanna to track the user activity (log data). i have several links on the page which submit form through specific way .the problem is :

I can't find a suitable way to handle the click event and insert the log in the database in a simple way.

My code :

HtmlGenericControl a = new HtmlGenericControl("a");
a.Attributes["onclick"] = "$('#" + frm.ClientID + "').submit();";
a.InnerText = "site " + dt_list.ElementAtOrDefault(0).Field<string>("pro_name").TrimEnd();
inner_li_1.Controls.Add(a);

---

Now i wanna to handle the click event of the link which make the submission ?!!

Answer 1

This is too much, how ever its works, and I use it in some case that I can not do other way.

The javascript call, I call the log first, then continue with submit. I have also show a wait message when I make the click, how ever the events happends too fast and the user did not understand that is wait for anything. I also take care to avoid double log of the action with simple javascript. I call this function on the onclick event.

var confirmSubmited = false;
function SubmitWithLog(me)
{
    // to avoid many clicks...
    if(confirmSubmited)
      return false;

    confirmSubmited=true;

    jQuery.ajax({
        url: "/LogAction.ashx",
        type: "GET",
        timeout: 3000,
        async: true, // you can try and async:false - maybe is better for you
        data: action=4, // here you send the log informations
        cache: false,
        success: function(html) {
            jQuery("#FormID").submit();
        },
        error: function(responseText, textStatus, XMLHttpRequest) {                 
            jQuery("#FormID").submit();
        }
    });

    return false;
}

The handler is as

public class LogAction : IHttpHandler
{
    public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
    {
                // log here what you wish

                // end up with no content
        context.Response.TrySkipIisCustomErrors = true;
        context.Response.Status = "204 No Content";
        context.Response.StatusCode = 204;          
    }
}

I like to clear that this is not a good way to log the user action, but its a way when you can not do otherwise. I use it only ones, when the user make submit and leave my site and go to one other site, and I use it to write this action.

In all other cases I use ether a reference in the url, ether make log on code behind, ether I include an empty image in the html page that make the log like that: ASP server stats for html pages

I have try to call ajax, and right way make the submit, but its fails, the ajax is stop by submit. The next way was to use timeout, to call ajax, and set timeout 500ms to make the submit, but I avoid the timeout because the ajax call takes less than 100ms as I have made it.

Answer 2

@Aristos -- Why in the world would you negatively impact the user experience by waiting for the Ajax call that does the logging to return before moving on with the event (click, submit, whatever...)?!? Logging is a non-critical part of the application, where the user experience does not change based on its results. It's a "send and forget" type routine. Fire off the Ajax request, leave the success and failure routines empty, and execute the submit on the line immediately following the $.ajax(); call.

So, some pseudo code for you...

function handleClick(e) {
    handleLoggingOnClick("something happened here");

    myForm.submit();
}

function handleLoggingOnClick(message) {
    $.ajax({url:"logging.do", data:"message="+message});  
}