Event Icons

Replace the generic grey event icons in Matomo's Visitor Log and Live (Real-time) widget with meaningful Material Design icons. Each event category/action pair can be assigned its own icon – from over 2,100 included icons – so you can instantly recognise event types at a glance. Hold Cmd (macOS) or Alt while clicking an event icon to copy its tooltip text instead of opening the linked page.

How it works

1. Go to System → Event Icons and select a website.
2. Click Load event types to detect recent events from the last 90 days.
3. Assign an icon to each category/action pair using the built-in icon picker.
4. Save – the icons update immediately in the visitor log and live widget.

The plugin bundles all Material Design icons as compact JSON path data (~570 KB). Icons are served as static SVG files directly by the web server – no PHP request per icon, no external API calls or dependencies.

Features

• Individual Material Design icons per event category/action
• Works in Visitor Log and Live (Real-time) widget
• Auto-detects existing event types from recent tracking data
• 2,100+ icons included – searchable picker
• Immediate update – no page reload needed
• Cmd-/Alt-click an event icon to copy its tooltip text
• Lightweight – no external dependencies

• EventIcons Plugin Realtime View

  

• EventIcons Plugin Settings Page

  

Overview

Event Icons lets you replace the generic event icons in Matomo's Visitor Log and Live (Real-time) widget with specific icons per event category and action.

How icon replacement works

The plugin hooks into Matomo's JavaScript and CSS pipeline:

1. A MutationObserver watches the DOM for new visitor log and live widget entries.
2. When entries are detected, the plugin reads the event category/action from the element's title attribute (live widget) or text content (visitor log).
3. The category/action pair is looked up in the user-defined mapping, and the matching icon's <img> src is replaced.
4. An AJAX call fetches action timestamps (server_time, time_spent_ref_action) from the database and appends them to the tooltip.

Settings page

The settings page at System → Event Icons provides:

• Website selector – choose which site's events to inspect.
• Load event types – scans the last 90 days of tracking data for existing category/action pairs.
• Icon picker – search through 2,100+ Material Design icons by name.
• Bulk assign – set the same icon for multiple rows at once.
• Save selected – persists the mapping immediately.

Icons

Icons are stored in icons/material-paths.json as a JSON object mapping icon names to SVG path data. Static SVG files for all icons live in icons/material/ and are generated with php scripts/generate-icons.php; the web server serves them directly, so each icon is a single browser-cached static file request instead of a full PHP request.

To add custom icons, see README.md → Adding custom icons.

Database queries

The plugin performs two database queries:

1. Event detection (settings page): SELECT cat.name, act.name, COUNT(*) FROM log_link_visit_action JOIN log_action ON ... GROUP BY cat.name, act.name – scoped to last 90 days and a specific site.
2. Action times (tooltip enhancement): SELECT server_time, time_spent_ref_action FROM log_link_visit_action WHERE idvisit = ? ORDER BY server_time ASC.

Limitations

• The first action of each visit always shows no time-on-page (landing page has no predecessor).
• The mapping is global – all sites share the same icon configuration.

I assigned icons but they don't appear. What's wrong?

Clear the Matomo cache: System → General Settings → Clear cache. If you're still seeing the old icons, make sure the browser cache is also cleared (hard refresh: Ctrl+F5 or Cmd+Shift+R).

Can I use custom icons not included in Material Design?

Yes. See the README.md → Adding custom icons section for instructions. Any SVG can be added as long as it is placed in the icons/material/ directory, the JSON index is rebuilt, and the static files are synced (php scripts/generate-icons.php).

Does this plugin work with Matomo 4?

No. The plugin targets Matomo 5.x (>=5.0.0-b1, <6.0.0-b1).

Does the plugin send data to external servers?

No. All icons are bundled locally. No external API calls, no tracking, no phoning home.

I see "Time on page: 0s" or no time at all.

The first action of each visit is the landing page – it has no time-on-page because there is no previous page. Subsequent actions show the time spent on the previous page. If all actions show no time, your tracking data may not include time_spent_ref_action (check if your tracker sends ping requests or if the page tracking is properly configured).

How do I uninstall the plugin?

Deactivate it in System → Plugins, then delete the plugins/EventIcons directory. The database contains no custom tables – uninstalling leaves no traces.