Count how many times a user clicked to a button in WordPress

Question

I need to count how many times a user clicked a specific button, for example:

<a id="download" href="#">Download</a>

What´s best practice here? I think about to create a completely new database table and increment the value each time a user clicks on the button.

function countClicks() {
 global $wpdb;
 $charset_collate = $wpdb->get_charset_collate();
 require_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' );

 //* Create the teams table
 $table_name = $wpdb->prefix . 'count_clicks';
 $sql = "CREATE TABLE $table_name (
 click_id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
 click_number INTEGER NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (click_id)
 ) $charset_collate;";
 dbDelta( $sql );
}

Do you have better solutions for this instead of creating a fresh new table? Btw: It´s a WordPress website.

are you looking to do something like : **http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-click-track/** — Yassine CHABLI, May 04 '20 at 07:13
I dont want to use a plugin :-) But thanks! I want to do exactly this. — Vueer, May 04 '20 at 07:17
but you said you want that count for every user, is that true? — Yassine CHABLI, May 04 '20 at 07:19
Nope, there are no users in my wordpress frontend, only invisible guests :-) I need to track only the number of downloads. Just the sum :-) — Vueer, May 04 '20 at 07:21
I think this way is safe. but I can purpose another way to do it in case those buttons could be linked with posts. for example, you have a button share in the post and you want to know how much this post is shared. if is that, you can save extra data to this in an existing WordPress table. — Yassine CHABLI, May 04 '20 at 07:34
click_number means the summary of clicks. Example: 25 (25 already clicked the button) — Vueer, May 04 '20 at 10:33
Why don't you use just the wp_options table? Store and increment the option? — Howard E, May 04 '20 at 22:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 05 '20 at 10:28

To increment a counter and have it without creating a new table. You should use the options API. This is core update safe.

First, include the following in your theme scripts which I'm assuming you have a local theme script or plugin js files. You must localize your script for using ajax in the "WP Way"

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
    $('a#download').click(function(e){
        e.preventDefault();
        $.ajax({
            url: myajax.ajaxurl,
            data: {
                action: 'increment_counter',
            },
            type: 'POST',
        })
        .done(function(){
            // go to the link they clicked
            window.location = $(this).attr('href');
        })
        .fail(function(xhr){
            console.log(xhr);
        })
    });
});

Then add the following to your functions.php or in your plugin.

add_action('wp_ajax_increment_counter', 'my_increment_counter');   
add_action('wp_ajax_nopriv_increment_counter', 'my_increment_counter');

function my_increment_counter(){
    // Name of the option
    $option_name = 'my_click_counter';
    // Check if the option is set already
    if ( get_option( $option_name ) !== false ) {
        $new_value = intval(get_option($option_name)) + 1; 
        // The option already exists, so update it.
        update_option( $option_name, $new_value );
    } else {
        // The option hasn't been created yet, so add it with $autoload set to 'no'.
        $deprecated = null;
        $autoload = 'no';
        add_option( $option_name, 1 , $deprecated, $autoload );
    }
}

So whenever you need to get the value without incrementing it, just use

get_option('my_click_counter')

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '20 at 11:30

0

I would use the Advanced Custom Fields plugin and create a custom field for each downloadable file - then use JavaScript to capture the click which via AJAX sends a call to a function that increments the count.

answered May 04 '20 at 11:30

Tokant

312
1
8

Can I do this also without any plugin? :-) – Vueer May 05 '20 at 04:43
Yes, without a plugin you can code the functionality that adds a custom field to each downloadable file and updates the count via JavaScript and AJAX. – Tokant May 05 '20 at 08:34

Count how many times a user clicked to a button in WordPress

2 Answers2