ICT Corporation
Log Manager · Chapter 3

Live Logs and Opening Files

Log Manager handles both logs arriving in real time from an external app (the Live tab) and log files saved on disk (file tabs). Both are shown in the same grid form, so you can search, bookmark, and analyze them in the same way.

Receiving Live Logs

When an external application sends the Win32 message WM_COPYDATA to the window class TF_LogMain or TF_LogMainW, rows are appended to the Live tab one at a time. The CSV fields sent are parsed internally and shown as the Time, Type, Log, Line, Func, File, Path, PID, TID, and Level columns.

The Live tab always exists and cannot be closed; its tab header shows a red dot indicating that logs are being recorded. The display is optimized so the screen does not flicker even when new logs arrive rapidly.

  • Pause: Pauses only the screen update. File writing and reception continue, and it is always off at app startup. Toggle it with Ctrl+P or the pause button on the toolbar.
  • Auto Scroll: Auto-scrolls to the end when a new row is added. If you scroll up with the scrollbar, bottom-following is suspended; scrolling back to the bottom resumes it automatically.
  • Row background: Color-coded by category (ERROR, WARN, INFO, BOOKMARK, and so on).

If a log message contains !!!, it is highlighted as an error (red); if it contains good, it is excluded from the error color.

Opening Log Files

The file tab feature is similar to Notepad++. You can open a previously saved log file in a new tab and compare it side by side with live logs.

  • Open: Open via the folder button on the toolbar, the Open Log File item in the Tool menu, Ctrl+O, or by dragging and dropping a file onto the window.
  • Close: Close with the tab's close button. The Live tab cannot be closed.
  • Tab names are shown up to 20 characters and trimmed with an ellipsis beyond that; the full path is available in a tooltip.
  • When there are many tabs, scroll horizontally with the spin buttons on the right.
  • Reopening an already-open file does not create a new tab; it only activates the existing tab.

Large files are also loaded asynchronously, so the tab appears immediately with progress shown as a percentage in the header. Closing the tab during loading cancels it instantly. Even a full day's log of around 730,000 lines does not freeze the screen, thanks to virtualized display.

Related Topics