Google Analytics Debugger Extension

Google Analytics Debugger is a devtools extension for Chrome, Firefox and Opera that exposes tracking beacon data to developers so they can test their analytics implementations. The extension will capture tracking beacons from Classic/Traditional Analytics and Universal Analytics.

Google Analytics Debugger will log the following interactions and data:

• Page views
• Events
• E-commerce transactions
• User timings
• Social interactions
• Custom variables
• Custom dimensions
• Custom metrics
• Content groups
• Campaign tracking

Prerequisites

Requirements

• NodeJS / NPM
• Grunt CLI

Setup

npm install

Building

The easiest way to get started is to simply run:

grunt

This will build the core, the browser extensions and start a watch task. If you want to build components or extensions individually you can use:

grunt core                   // builds the core
grunt core chrome            // builds the chrome extension (requires core)
grunt core firefox           // builds the firefox extension (requires core)

Installing the extension for development

Chrome

First, make sure you've built the chrome extension. Browse to chrome://extensions, tick the 'Developer mode' option, click 'Load unpacked extension' and select the build/chrome folder. If all goes well, when you open/restart devtools you should see a 'GA Debugger' panel.

If you modify the core or chrome source code you'll need to rebuild the extension (the watch task will do this for you) and then restart devtools to see your changes.

Firefox

You can only develop and test add-ons using the Developer Editon of Firefox. Release versions of Firefox require add-ons to be digitally signed before they can be installed.

First, make sure you've built the Firefox add-on. Next, launch Firefox and browse to about:debugging. Click the 'Load Temporary Add-on' button, browse to your add-on's build folder and select the install.rdf file. If your add-on loads correctly, Google Analtics Debugger should appear in the extensions list. You can now open devtools and select the 'GA Debugger' tab.

If you modify the core or add-on source code you'll need to rebuild the extension (the watch task will do this for you) and click the 'Reload' button in the Add-on debugger menu to see your changes.

Opera

To install the extension in Opera, follow the steps above for Chrome.

Building distributable extensions

The dist task will package each extension into its distributable format, ready to be installed in the browser. You can run this task (once you have build the extensions) using:

grunt dist                    // create distributable extensions

Notes

The GA debugger repository contains GACore and the browser extensions. GACore is a library for inspecting Google Analytics tracking beacons and is used by all browser extensions. GACore can also stand alone if required.