Track any user interaction of an iOS App

Question

How can I track or catch every user interaction of my iOS app? Like pressing an UIButton, UIBarButton, ... any UIControl element.

I know there are hundreds of analytics tools like Google Analytics, Flurry, Appsee and so on, but I want to save these data on my own server.

user_5108673 · Answer

You can subclass UIApplication:

Create an UIApplication Subclass
override the sendAction(_ action: Selector, to target: Any?, from sender: Any?, for event: UIEvent?) event method, remember to call the super implementation
put an NSLog or other diagnostic code inside the implementation

Example, this will print a log every time an UIButton is pressed:

func sendAction(_ action: Selector, to target: Any?, from sender: Any?, for event: UIEvent?) -> Bool {
    if (sender is UIButton) {
        print("Action: \(NSStringFromSelector(action)) - \(target) - \(sender)")
    }
    return super.sendAction(action, to: target, from: sender, for: event)
}


2017-07-08 14:46:18.270 UIApplicationSubclass[94764:c07] Action: anAction: -  - >
2017-07-08 14:46:27.378 UIApplicationSubclass[94764:c07] Action: anAction: -  - >

For objective-c reference click here

user_8511841 · Answer

Hello @tuvok if you dont want to use Google analytics and others libraries then you have to make an API(Web service). you have to hit api on every user interaction like button pressed or anything else.

user_2820043 · Answer

found an easy solution:

1 .create an UIControl extension

private let swizzling: (AnyClass, Selector, Selector) -> () = { forClass, originalSelector, swizzledSelector in
    let originalMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(forClass, originalSelector)
    let swizzledMethod = class_getInstanceMethod(forClass, swizzledSelector)
    method_exchangeImplementations(originalMethod!, swizzledMethod!)
}

extension UIControl {

    static let classInit: Void = {
        let originalSelector = #selector(sendAction(_:to:for:))
        let swizzledSelector = #selector(swizzled_sendAction(_:to:for:))
        swizzling(UIControl.self, originalSelector, swizzledSelector)
    }()

    @objc func swizzled_sendAction(_ action: Selector, to target: Any?, for event: UIEvent?) {

        swizzled_sendAction(action, to: target, for: event)
        print("action was triggered")
    }
}

init in AppDelegate:

@UIApplicationMain class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {
```
override init() {
    super.init()
    UIControl.classInit
}
```

example from here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42047289/2820043

Track any user interaction of an iOS App

3 Answers