Episode Three — Displaying data
Our approach to a fair and ethical alternative to established web analytics tools is taking shape. Milestone 3 has been completed. This is what we have achieved in the last ten weeks.
Improved UX
The Auditorium for users is now annotated with explanations of all metrics as well as analytics-specific terms. It also contains an FAQ section. In general, new metrics were added and the UX was refined for users and operators.
These updates are already up and running in our own instance for users. Opt in and open the Auditorium.
Check it out
Working in teams
If you want to improve your services with transparent and fair web analytics, it is very likely that you collaborate in groups. Therefore, in a first draft we have added basic utilities for managing user logins and accounts. These tools will be further refined during milestone 4.
Convenient setup
Using the command line can be a bit intimidating. This is why we have added an in-browser setup screen for a more intuitive setup. You can now use your browser to perform the initial setup.
Goodbye Choo, hello Preact
Choo was a great choice to build dynamic UIs very quickly. But as the Auditorium grew, we noticed a lack of mechanisms to break interfaces into components. So we migrated the application to Preact. A better way to use modern paradigms for programming interfaces.
Verifying download integrity
Our binaries are now signed with a GPG key. After downloading Offen, you can now check if the binary you want to use is the one we intend to distribute.
Learn more
Safari now fully supported
At the end of milestone 2 we noticed problems with the way the Safari browser stores keys. We fixed this by adding a dedicated fallback mechanism.
Give it a try
Ready in one minute
Self-hosting is ideal for privacy focused software. Based on free resources, you can now deploy a production ready Offen instance to Heroku in a jiffy.
We are currently considering the development of further 1-click options for platforms such as YunoHost and DigitalOcean.
Deploy Offen to Heroku
Happy Birthday to us
Offen is now one year old. We made some progress on our way to develop a self hosted and transparent alternative to established web analytics tools.
But it is not yet the time for standing ovations. There is still a lot to be done. If you like, you can help us. Stay tuned and provide us with your feedback. Thanks in advance!
Up next
Episode Four — Managing data will feature a more fine grained account management and the collecting and implementing of first user feedback. We'll be right back.
Deep dive
Interested in the details? Want to get your hands dirty? Take a look at our code.
Open Offen GitHub repo
Top comments (1)
A lot of updates over here. For one thing we talk more about why we are different from Matomo on our front page. Also it is now much easier to give Offen a test drive. Have a look!
offen.dev
Any feedback welcome.