Tracking non quiz items

I have experience using SCORM to track a Test or course completion. But I just recently had a request to track other things like total time in minutes a course is open, and numbers of times certain buttons are clicked (more details buttons that trigger lightbox slides). Most importantly, we have main menus and the students only click on the menu buttons they are interested in, we would like to track which subjects the students are selecting.

Can this sort of tracking be accomplished with Tin Can or in some other "auto" manner ? or - is the only way to manually build in variables that count each button click and then try to use a javascript command to send out the variables ?

Any help will be greatly appreciated