Real Views

Qualified thread views

• A separate counter: collect qualified views without overwriting XenForo’s original view totals.
• Visible-time threshold: require 1–60 seconds of visible-page time; five seconds by default.
• Rolling repeat suppression: count each identity once per thread in a 1–30 day window; one day by default.
• Clear outcomes: distinguish qualified views, confirmed repeats, recognized bot user agents and unverified requests.
• Request exclusions: exclude HEAD requests, prefetches, redirects, errors and AJAX fragments from eligible thread-page traffic.

Traffic reporting in the Admin CP

• Overview counters and a qualification-rate summary.
• 24-hour (hourly), 7-day and 30-day views, plus custom dates with forum and thread filters.
• Daily trend bars, and top threads with canonical thread paths.
• Tabbed country, ASN, browser, recognized-bot, identity-method and geography-source breakdowns, with Create rule shortcuts for countries and networks.
• 30 days of hourly data, 365 days of daily data, and retained lifetime qualified totals.
• A Settings health check for geography databases, maintenance and retention, plus recent configuration history.

Visitor identification and geography

• Member identities and optional first-party guest cookies, with a keyed IP/browser-hash fallback when the cookie is unavailable.
• No raw IP-address or raw user-agent history stored in the add-on’s analytics tables.
• Trusted Cloudflare country headers and an optional configured ASN header.
• Customer-supplied local Country and ASN MMDB databases; missing enrichment shows Unknown.
• Explicit proxy trust settings shared by geography, identity and beacon throttling.

Manual Cloudflare rule export

• Country and ASN sets with any/all matching.
• Optional hostname and path-prefix restrictions.
• Managed Challenge and Block actions.
• Exceptions for Cloudflare-verified good bots, or verified Googlebot/Bingbot.
• Expression splitting within 4,096 characters, character counts, and required-slot checks.
• Copy-paste export works without connecting a Cloudflare account.

Guided Cloudflare setup

• An Overview tab with a four-step setup checklist and a seven-day traffic snapshot makes the next step clear after installation.
• A four-step setup guide with a progress bar, copyable client name and callback URL, illustrations of the Cloudflare navigation and client-configuration screens, and example panels for permissions and credentials.
• Enter only the Client ID and Client Secret in XenForo; required OAuth scope identifiers are supplied automatically.
• Customer-owned private OAuth client and one selected zone per forum installation. Credentials and API requests do not pass through dcstyle.info.
• Explicit zone confirmation after authorization. Connecting alone does not activate rules.
• Finish later, review traffic first, or use an existing rule from the first-rule screen.

Searchable traffic selection

• Searchable multi-selects with checkbox choices, selected-value chips and individual removal controls.
• 249 supported country codes, with localized country names where the browser supports them.
• Network choices from the last seven UTC calendar days of recorded traffic and existing draft targets; this is not a global ASN directory.
• Observed, qualified and unverified counts beside recorded choices. Unknown networks are excluded and fresh drafts select nothing automatically.
• Existing draft selections remain available outside the recent reporting window.
• Keyboard controls, responsive layout, native light/dark colors, and a checkbox fallback without JavaScript.

Reviewed Cloudflare deployment

• Choose traffic → Choose behavior → Name and review, with a separate Save draft and finish later action.
• Managed Challenge by default, optional Block, and plain-language any/all matching, with a live summary and rule-count estimate while you build.
• Generated connected rules include the forum hostname, protected ACP/callback paths and verified-bot exemption.
• Readable previews of creates, changes and removals; expressions and diagnostics remain available under technical details.
• Separate Validate with Cloudflare and Apply to Cloudflare actions, tracked by a Preview → Validate → Apply → Verify timeline.
• Rule groups, Live rules, Activity and Connection views for ongoing management.
• Explicit adoption of Block and Managed Challenge rules, with enable, disable, removal and restoration controls.
• Resumable operations, external-change detection and recovery actions for interrupted or partial deployments.
• Encrypted credentials and separate administrator permissions for connection management and deployment.
• Export managed-rule inventory from the Connection view’s advanced actions. Disconnecting and uninstalling retain remote rules.

Public display and Forum Statistics

• Keep original counts, show both counts, or show qualified counts on supported standard thread displays.
• Original-only public display is the default.
• Optional Most qualified views tab for D.C Style – Forum Statistics.
• Period rankings use UTC calendar dates; all-time ranking uses lifetime qualified totals.
• Standalone analytics do not require Forum Statistics or Cloudflare.

Before you install

• Declared requirements: XenForo 2.3.0+ and PHP 7.2+. The Admin CP interface has been reviewed locally on XenForo 2.3.13 with PHP 8.4; minimum-version testing remains pending.
• Optional Cloudflare connection: HTTPS for the forum and ACP, PHP OpenSSL, a Cloudflare zone for the forum, and a customer-owned private OAuth client.
• Optional geography: trusted Cloudflare metadata or locally installed Country and ASN MMDB databases.
• Back up your forum database and files. Test the add-on and your custom style on a test installation first.

1. Install the archive

In the Admin CP, open Add-ons → Install/upgrade from archive and select DC-RealViews-1.0.0.zip. If installing manually, extract the archive, upload the contents of its upload directory into your XenForo root, then install Real Views from the Add-ons page.

Command-line alternative, after uploading the files:

php cmd.php xf-addon:install DC/RealViews

2. Grant administrator access

Open Groups & permissions → Administrators, edit the appropriate administrator, and grant the permissions needed:

• View Real Views reports.
• Manage Real Views settings and rules.
• Manage Real Views Cloudflare connection — optional.
• Deploy and adopt Real Views Cloudflare rules — optional.

Report access alone does not grant Cloudflare deployment access. Super administrators retain XenForo’s normal full administrative access.

3. Open the Overview and review counting settings

Open D.C Style – Real Views Analytics → Real Views. The Overview tab shows a four-step checklist. Choose Open analytics to begin reviewing traffic, or Start 4-step setup for optional rule management. Analytics works independently of Cloudflare.

Open the Settings tab. Collection is enabled by default, with five visible seconds and a one-day repeat window. Keep public counts on Original counts only while you review the data. Add excluded forum IDs if needed.

Qualified totals begin at installation. Do not expect old threads to have historical qualified totals immediately.

4. Check collection

Open a viewable thread in a normal browser and keep the tab visible for longer than the threshold. Return to the report and refresh it. Repeating the visit within the configured window should be recorded as a confirmed repeat rather than another qualified view.

Missing JavaScript, content blockers and short visits can leave a request unverified. Exclude thread HTML from external full-page caches so requests and measurement tokens reach XenForo correctly. This does not require disabling caching for static assets.

5. Add geography if you need it

For Cloudflare-backed forums, enable country geolocation. ASN is not supplied by the standard country header: configure a request-header transform to overwrite X-DC-RealViews-ASN with to_string(ip.src.asnum), or use a local ASN database.

For local lookups, enter absolute paths to your own current Country and ASN .mmdb files in Settings. Keep them outside the public web root and maintain them with the database provider’s update tooling. Check the Health check panel for missing, unreadable, wrong-type or stale files. Never trust arbitrary incoming proxy headers.

6. Choose the public display — optional

Once you are satisfied with collection, select Original and qualified counts or Qualified counts only. This changes supported displays and does not overwrite XenForo’s original stored count. Custom styles may need template adaptation.

7. Add a Forum Statistics tab — optional

If Forum Statistics is installed, open its Manage tabs page and create a Most qualified views tab. Configure its item limit, supported reporting period, placement and visibility using the existing Forum Statistics controls.

8. Build Cloudflare rules without connecting an account

Open Manual export from the Overview’s No Cloudflare? Generate copy-paste rules instead link, from Cloudflare → Manual export once connected, or from Create rule beside a country or network in Analytics when Cloudflare is not connected. Enter your country/ASN criteria, choose any/all matching, add hostname/path restrictions, select the action, and enter your Cloudflare plan and available rule slots. Review every generated expression. Copy each rule into Cloudflare’s custom-rule Expression Editor and select the displayed action. No rule is applied by the manual builder itself.

9. Connect Cloudflare — optional

1. Open Overview → Start 4-step setup, or choose the Cloudflare tab. Copy the exact HTTPS callback URL shown for your installation.
2. Open Cloudflare OAuth clients, select your account, then choose Create client. Keep the client private.
3. Use the suggested name. Set Response Type to Code, enable both Authorization Code and Refresh Token grants, and choose Client Secret Basic. Paste the exact callback URL.
4. Select Zone Read and Zone WAF Write. Leave both required on Choose optional scopes. Public visibility, domain verification and a logo are unnecessary for this private client.
5. Create the client and securely copy its Client ID and one-time Client Secret. Follow the official Cloudflare instructions alongside the add-on’s guide.
6. Back in XenForo, enter those two values and select Save and connect with Cloudflare. Real Views supplies the scope identifiers automatically; you do not need to enter an API token or scope list.
7. Approve Cloudflare’s consent screen. Select the matching zone and choose Use this zone, even if only one match is available. If there are no matches, check your account access and the forum hostname.

A successful connection does not apply rules. Next, choose Create your first rule, Review traffic first or Use an existing rule.

10. Create and review your first rule

1. Choose traffic: open Countries and search by name or code. Select multiple entries using the checkboxes. Open Networks (ASN) to choose from recorded networks or existing draft targets. Remove a selection using its chip. Recorded choices include counts for the displayed seven-day UTC date range.
2. If no networks are available, select countries or return after network traffic has been recorded. The network picker is not a global ASN lookup. No example targets are inserted into new drafts.
3. Choose behavior: choose Any match or Both must match, keep Managed Challenge or explicitly choose Block. Review any path restriction, the forum hostname, protected admin paths and bot exemption.
4. Name and review: name the rule group and choose Save draft and review. Use Save draft and finish later if you are not ready.
5. Review the proposed creates, changes and removals. Select Validate with Cloudflare, then separately select Apply to Cloudflare. If the preview expires or remote rules change, create a fresh preview.
6. Wait for the verified result. For interrupted or partial operations, use the displayed recovery action and inspect the affected rules before continuing.

Traffic counts describe requests reaching XenForo; they do not predict how many requests a combined rule will challenge. A multi-rule deployment consists of individual operations and is not an atomic transaction.

11. Manage rules and the connection

After the first deployment, use Rule groups to edit, enable, disable or delete managed groups, Live rules to see the rules currently on Cloudflare, adopt supported rules or accept remote changes, Activity for deployment outcomes, and Connection for account details and connection controls. Adoption requires explicit review and does not itself alter the remote rule.

Back up the forum database and the separate encryption key in protected internal_data together. Losing the key requires reconnecting. Never send client secrets or tokens in support messages.

Updates and removal

Install future versions through XenForo’s Add-ons page using the new archive, after backing up your database and files. Before uninstalling, open Cloudflare → Connection → Advanced actions → Export managed-rule inventory and explicitly disable or remove remote rules if desired. Disconnect and uninstall retain Cloudflare rules; revoke authorization in Cloudflare if revocation cannot be confirmed.