[innerindex]Work on bsuite3 is progressing well, thanks to help from Zach and Matt, who are collaborating with me on completely rearchitecting how stats are collected and reported. This, however, is not bs3. It’s a transitional release intended to fix some bugs in b2 and make upgrading easier. This upgrade is recommended for all current bsuite users and new users.

bsuite Features

• Tracks page loads (hits)
• Tracks search terms used by visitors ariving at your site via search engines
• Reports top-performing stories via a function that can be included in the sidebar
• Reports recent comments via a function that can be included in the sidebar
• Reports top search terms via a function that can be included in the sidebar
• Outputs a pulse graph of activity on your site or specific stories
• Lists related posts at the bottom of the current post’s content
• Suggests posts that closely match the search criteria for visitors who arrive via search engines
• Integrates bsuite_speedcache
• Does some stuff with tags

Fixed/Changed/Added

• As mentioned above, a huge-but-invisible feature here is that this version includes some pieces that will make it easy to transition to the new plugin.
• MySQL errors while creating the tables should now be fixed. It’s my shame that these have persisted so long.
• The plugin now “rebuilds the tags table” as soon as you activate it. This is a good thing, but if you’ve got a huge number of posts (or a really short max execution time) it might cause a problem (please leave a comment if it does).
• The related posts feature now works even if you aren’t tagging your posts. If there are no tags, the post’s title is used as a search string.
• This list is probably incomplete and in some other way inaccurate. It’s not intentional, I’m just sloppy. Please leave comments with bug reports or corrections, I’ll do what I can to fix them.
• Finally, I’m now hosting the download on a new server, so it won’t be subject to .Mac’s bandwidth consumption limits.

Installation

• Download and unzip bsuite.zip
• Place bsuite.php in you wp-content/plugins directory
• Place spacer.gif in your wp-content directory
• Log in to your WordPress admin panel and activate the plugin, then visit the new bsuite submenu of the options tab. This will allow bsuite to create its database tables.
• Stats collection will start automatically; you can see the results in the new bsuite Reports submenu of your Dashboard
• Once installed, be sure to enable the options and consider customizing the look by adding the bsuite CSS to your theme’s CSS (sample CSS here).
• In order to view the stats reports reports on your public pages, you’ll need to add the display functions to your pages.

Upgrading

• Upgrades from earlier versions of bsuite are easy, just replace the old bsuite.php file with the new one.
• Don’t forget to visit the bsuite submenu of the options tab so you can setup any new features.

Commands

The bsuite submenu of the options has a few command buttons:

• Clear bsuite_speedcache

  The cache improves performance, but can sometimes get stale before its time. This command clears it.

• Rebuild bsuite tag index

  bsuite maintains its tag index with every story edit. Use this command to bring old-content into the index or if you’ve edited the content in way WP doesn’t know about.

Options

The bstat submenu of the options tab has a few configurable settings:

• Minimum userlevel to view bsuite reports

  The options are restricted to administrators, but you can choose who can view the reports.

• Output default CSS

  Some of the bsuite functions require CSS styles not found in the average style sheet. This will output default styles.

• Default pulse graph style

  This sets how values are interpolated in drawing the pulse graph. Experiment with the options to see how they work.

• Suggest related entries in post

  This will insert a block of links at the tail of each (tagged) post’s content with links to related posts at your site.

• Tag input format

  Name your style: square brackets or angle brackets / ``

              This appears to make it compatible with a number of existing tag management strategies now in use — including those used by [Ecto][11] and [SimpleTags][12].
  
              Tags are mapped to Technorati, but a future version will include an option to set other tag resolvers.
  
              # Using bsuite Functions {#11613_using-bsuite-functio_1}
  
              Function usage is unchanged from [the last version][13]. Among the things at the top of the list for bs3: widgets.
  
              # Known Bugs {#11613_known-bugs_1}
  
              None yet, but I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Report what you find in the comments below.
  
              # Money Grubbing {#11613_money-grubbing_1}
  
              bsuite is [GPL-licensed][14] free software, but after some urging by friends, I’m opening the tip jar. If you use it and like it, let me know. And if you feel moved, leave a tip in the jar.