snakefoot / snaketail-net

Tail utility for monitoring text log files and Windows EventLog

snaketail-net

Tail utility for monitoring text log files and Windows EventLog

• Monitor "large" text log files
• Monitor Windows Event Logs (Without needing administrator rights)
• Multiple Window Modes supported (MDI, Tabbed, Floating)
• Save and load entire window session. Can load session file at startup when given as command line parameter.
• Sentence highlight with colors based on keyword match (Includes regex support)
• Quickly jump between highlighted sentences using keyboard shortcuts
• Toggle bookmarks and quickly jump between bookmarks
• Configure external tools and bind custom shortcut key (Trigger execute on highlight)
• Tails circular logs where the log file is periodically truncated/renamed
• Tails log directory where the latest log file is displayed (Includes wildcards)
• Search in the entire text log file (or Windows EventLog)
• Highlight window tabs using icons, when file changes are detected
• Tail new log files with a simple drag drop from Windows Explorer
• Filtering of Windows Event Logs using regular expressions
• Display simple process statistics in window title bar (RAM + CPU usage + TRX/Sec)
• Stop and start services directly
• Change tail window background color
• Change tail window text color
• Change tail window icon
• Minimize to tray
• Low memory usage independent of log file size
• Low cpu usage even when more than 100 lines/sec
• Works well over remote desktop
• Supports Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Win2k8, Win7
• Requires .NET 2.0
• GNU GPL License v3

snaketail-net's Issues

Open last Session settings file at startup [feature request]

I think it would be a great feature if SnakeTail automatically loads the last 
(i.e. most recent) Session settings file at start-up. Or, alternatively, 
provide a way to configure this in the options. 

If this is already possible (perhaps by tweaking the SnakeTail shortcut and 
adding parameters), please provide an example because I can't get that working. 
:)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 2 Aug 2011 at 9:23

Auto open last opened files

whenever I open SnakeTail I always have reopen the files I had open the last 
time.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 20 Feb 2013 at 11:35

Feature request: recent file list

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. monitor some files
2. exit
3. start again, no recent files to choose from

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Would like list of recent files so I can go back to what I was doing before. 
Perhaps the "session" will do this, have not experimented yet, but then have to 
remember to save a session.


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

W7, v1.6

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Mar 2012 at 10:56

File Reopen Check Interval not sticking

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Edit - View Options
2. Log File tab - File Reopen Check Interval
3. Set interval to 1800 seconds
4. Click OK.
5. Re-open View options.
6. reopen interval is set to 0


What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I would expect the interval to remain at 1800.  Instead it resets to 0

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.8.2.0, windows 7 x64

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 16 Jul 2013 at 7:22

Keyword highlighting persisted across sessions

I rarely save and restore sessions, since I work with so many logfiles in 
different places and usually only once per file, so it would be great if the 
keyword highlighting choices I make were persisted across sessions. It's a bit 
annoying that I have to make the same settings everytime. A checkbox saying 
"save as default" when I click Ok would be great.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 4 Apr 2013 at 12:54

Attachments:

• snaketail.PNG

Save

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.
2.
3.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?


Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 1 Aug 2013 at 8:20

• Merged into: #51

Rolling filename should be seen on the window title.

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.Open a log file
2.Right click->Click "View options"->Select "Log File" tab 
3.Enter some wildcard in the File Path box and check "Regex in File Path"
4.Click OK

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
- When a new file log created fitting the wildcard expression you previously 
entered in the file path textbox, file content could be seen but no filename 
information is visible to the user. User doesn't know which log file is viewed 
at the moment.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
SnakeTail 1.6.0.0 + Win7

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 22 Mar 2012 at 12:52

Support drag & drop

I would like to drop files from explorer onto the icon on my desktop and have 
them displayed.

1.8.2 Win7 x64

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 19 Mar 2013 at 6:11

"Window - Stay on Top" Option

Need an option to make the window stay on top always.

And describe the situation where this feature will be helpful.
>>> This would help to keep the log window stay active for easy monitoring at 
any time

What version of the product are you using?
Ver 1.8.2.0

On what operating system?
Windows 7 

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 3 Jul 2013 at 8:01

• Merged into: #45

Call executable or script on match

Pass the filename of the log and the line to the script for processing.

Could be used for automation based on log entries.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 17 May 2013 at 5:44

File name/path should be copyable from main window

As of 1.8.2, You can see the full file name by hovering over the tab.
However you have to go into Edit-ViewOptions-brings up a new dialog-LogFile to 
actually copy the filename/path.

It would be great to have a quick way to access the fileName/Path. For example, 
Notepad++ has a menu when you click on the tab for things like 'filename to 
clipboard, file path to clipboard...)

This would make it quicker work with SnakeTail and other programs.
For example, if I need to get the log file in use to copy/make a backup/open in 
windows explorer, open in another program...

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.8.2 on Windows 7

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 1 May 2013 at 7:34

characters in .txt file is truncated if the line contains more than 1001 characters

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. open a file that has more than 1001 characters in one line

(Notepad seems to word wrap at 1024 characters even if word wrap is disabled.)

2. Notice that all characters after the 1001st column are not displayed

What is the expected output?

All characters are displayed

What do you see instead?

All characters after the 1001st column are truncated \ not displayed.

What version of the product are you using?

1.8.2.0

On what operating system?

Windows 7 Enterprise x64 SP1

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 13 Mar 2013 at 10:18

Feature request: line wrap

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. monitor a file
2. horizontal scroll, but no option for line wrap
3.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

would like to have line wrap so can view whole line

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

W7, 1.6

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Mar 2012 at 10:58

Horizontal scroll very long

First off, SnakeTail is a great program, and this is more a feature request 
than a serious bug. Perhaps this little issue can be easily resolved, since I 
find it somewhat annoying when wanting to use the horizontal scroll bar.

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Create a text document with just a few words.
2. Open that text document in SnakeTail; the horizontal bar will now be 
excessively long.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I'd expect that the horizontal scroll bar would be adaptive to the width of the 
text file.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
SnakeTail 1.4.0.0, on Windows 7 Home Premium.

Please provide any additional information below.
Please see the attached screenshot.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 2 Aug 2011 at 9:13

Attachments:

• largeScrollBar.PNG

Configure audible alert when search finds a match

after it finds a match, an audible alert is the feature i need.
that or the ability to execute a command at that time automatically.

thank you, its a nice app

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 29 Dec 2012 at 7:27

Need "Stay on Top" Window Option

What feature are you missing ? 
>>> Need to have an option to set the window "Stay on Top".

And describe the situation where this feature will be helpful.
>>> This will help to have the Log window active all the time and quickly 
glimpse through the log any time.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
>>> Version 1.8.2 on Windows 7 OS

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 3 Jul 2013 at 9:11

Default file extension filter with both .txt and .log

1. Go to File -> Open File
2. Browse to a folder with a .log file

The file is not shown until changing filter to (*.log)

It would be great, if the default file extension filter shows both .txt files 
and .log files.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 24 Jan 2013 at 10:49

Add jump to end button

It would be nice to have a button somewhere to jump back to the end of the 
file. If it's a large log and I've been scrolling through looking for things 
and now I want to resume 'tailing', this would make it easier.

1.8.2 on Win7 x64

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 19 Mar 2013 at 6:01

Program Hang opening log file over network

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open Snake Tail
2. Navigate to \\computer\c$\path\to\file
3. Snake Tail hangs

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Complete app hang


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.8.2.0 on Windows 8 Enterprise 64 bit


Please provide any additional information below.
Log file in question was a robocopy log.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by baker.matt.b on 9 Jul 2013 at 6:47

Additional newline displayed

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Execute a long running command with output redirection to a file in a 
cmd.exe box (e.g. md5sum -c test.md5 > test.log)
2. Monitor the test.log in a snaketail

What is the expected output? 
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f015.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f016.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f017.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f018.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f019.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f020.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2

What do you see instead?
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f015.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f016.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f017.vmdk
MD5 pass: d
isk2\disk2-f018.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f019.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2\disk2-f020.vmdk
MD5 pass: disk2


What version of the product are you using
v1.6.0

On what operating system?
Windows 7 64bit


Please provide any additional information below.
When the logfile is updated, snaketail detects it and displays the new 
information, but it always add an additional newline.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 28 Nov 2011 at 10:34

Feature request: Possibility to configure fonts/colors for the whole applications

Changing the colour and font for the whole application would greatly improve 
the productivity while working with the app. As of now you can only change 
these setting for separate windows after their creation.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Sep 2012 at 8:26

Feature Request - Line numbers and word wrap

Nice little tool.

I'd like to suggest two related enhancements.

1. Line number
2. Word wrap

I think this would be a useful addition to the tool, some of the logs I need to 
monitor are quite long, being able to see them on screen without having to 
scroll would be great.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 4 Jan 2013 at 4:29

When opening files, only read the last x lines.

It would be nice to have an option to only read the last x lines when opening 
files. This would be especially useful for big log files opened from network 
shares. Currently it takes a good minute to open 4 medium sized log files 
through a 50 MBIT connection.

Thanks a lot for this App, it's really nice :)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 30 Aug 2012 at 2:50

Full filename should be seen in window title

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. open a\location\log.txt
2. open b\location\log.txt
3. both window titles are log.txt

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
- both windows show full paths to the open files

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
- 1.6 on Win7 x64

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 25 May 2012 at 7:06

Unable to open multiple files via commandline or shortcuts

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open Command Prompt
2. Run the following commands:
echo "foo" > c:\foo.log
echo "test" > c:\test.log
C:\Progra~1\SnakeTail\SnakeTail.exe "C:\foo.log" "C:\test.log"

3. SnakeTail will only open the first command-line argument, any additional 
arguments are dropped.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I expect SnakeTail would attempt to open each of the additional parameters, as 
it does when multiple logs are selected via the GUI.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
I am using the latest version 1.8.2 under Windows 7 64-bit.
I have tried both the SnakeTail.v1.8.2.x64.msi and SnakeTail_v1.8.2.zip 
versions with the same results.

Please provide any additional information below.
I also expect the same fix should handle launching SnakeTail with multiple 
arguments via a shortcut.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 8 May 2013 at 2:16

Cannot clear Windows Service option

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Right click (or go to Edit Menu)
2. Select View Options
3. Go to the Log File tab
4. If the Windows Service field is empty, then type in a text (any text will 
do) and click
5. Open View Options again. This time clear the Windows Service field and click 
OK.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
The particular log file should now no longer be tied to any window service, but 
it still is. Both Start/Stop Service cmds work and the field was not cleared 
when checking.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
SnakeTail 1.8.2.0
Windows 7

Please provide any additional information below.
Additionally, the cmds "Start Service..." and "Stop Service..." from right 
click and the Edit menu should be named "Start Service" and "Stop Service" (no 
...) to indicate immediate action when clicked (normally ... means a dialog 
with further choices will pop-up).

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Mar 2013 at 9:55

Loaded session name information should be seen in the main windows title

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.Open SnakeTail
2.Load a previously saved session file

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
- Session filename information should be seen in the main windows title. User 
doesn't know which session is loaded at the moment.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
- SnakeTail 1.6.0.0 + Win7

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 22 Mar 2012 at 12:53

Save Session does not work with detached windows

When using a detached window (through Edit -> Switch Window Mode), the Save 
Session (through File -> Save Session..) does not work: the settings do get 
saved, however not for the detached window (only for the docked windows). 
Opening the Session Settings file the next time will open all windows except 
the detached window.

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open a file, change a setting, and use Switch Window Mode.
2. Save the settings to a Session File.
3. Close SnakeTail and restart SnakeTail.
4. Open the previously saved Sessions file. Now the docked windows will open, 
but the detached windows will not open and are gone.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I would expect SnakeTail to also save the settings and location of the detached 
windows.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
SnakeTail 1.4.0.0 on Windows 7 Home Premium.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 2 Aug 2011 at 9:19

Save keyword highlighting settings

It would be nice if the viewing options - especially keyword highlighting - 
were saved so I don't have to set it each time.

1.8.2 on Win 7 x64

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 19 Mar 2013 at 5:57

Defect: Un pause key doesn't work

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Tail a log file
2. Pause the file via the PAUSE key.
3. Press PAUSE again to un pause the tailing.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I expect the tailing to start again. It stays paused.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
SnakeTail 1.6.0.0. Windows 7.

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 30 Jan 2012 at 1:46

Enhancement - Global view settings

It would be great if you can have global settings, eg. font & font size.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Apr 2011 at 12:50

Feature Request: Apply "view options" to all open files

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. set view options on one file
2. options are not set on another file
3.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

I would like my view options, especially keyword highlighting but also font, to 
apply to all the log files I monitor. Even a method to take options from one 
file and apply to another would be great.


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

W7


Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Mar 2012 at 10:54

Editor that requires exclusive write-access fails to work with snaketail

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Create text file and let it open in editor (for example PSPad)
2. open text file with snake tail too
3. change content in editor and try to save
4. Editor display "can not save file" error message

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

a tail like behavior, snake tail should display the changed content and editor 
should be able to save the file.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?

1.8.2.0

Please provide any additional information below.

I reproduced the problem with Enerprise Architect log files too

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 25 Jul 2013 at 11:27

Documentation for View Options

Need some documentation on the View Option dialog.

I'm looking to understand/use the tail circular log, and tail log directory 
features in your program.  I am at a loss as to what these exactly mean and how 
they can be used.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 16 Jul 2013 at 5:05

ampersand in file is not displayed and underlines the next character

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. open a file with one or more ampersands in the file

For example:
&a&b&c

2. Notice that the first two ampersands in the file are not displayed

3. Notice that the last ampersand in the file will underline the next character

What is the expected output?
&a&b&c

What do you see instead?
abc

(c is underlined)

What version of the product are you using?
1.8.1

On what operating system?
Windows 7 Enterprise x64 SP1

Please provide any additional information below.

It doesn't matter if the file is ANSI, Unicode, or UTF-8.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 13 Mar 2013 at 12:25

Feature Request: Tailing file in remote server(SSH)

You are thinking about something similar as using Putty to run a tail -f 
command on the remote machine ?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/get-tabs-for-your-putty/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3545611/tail-f-using-putty-hangs

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 5 Jul 2012 at 5:08

Feature Request: Ability to "mark" your location in a log file

When viewing logs, especially if I am testing something it is handy to be able 
to some how annotate the view i.e. 

log log log log log
*** 27/10/2011 10:06 - About to do thing that's really important ***
log log log oh dear everything's gone horribly wrong!

Sincerely, Ben

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 27 Oct 2011 at 9:08

Exception on CTRL+F find when searching inside any large text file

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. CTRL+F in opened file
2. When it does not find an entry sometimes it pops an exception

Unhandled exception has occurred in the application:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.6.0.0

Please provide any additional information below.

see details on bug report below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 2 Aug 2012 at 1:32

Attachments:

• Untitled.png

Enhancement - Drag and drop files to monitor

It would be good if I can drag and drop files from Windows Explorer to 
SnakeTail to monitor.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 14 Apr 2011 at 12:47

Unable to open multiple files at once

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Open SnakeTail
2. File Menu > Open File
3. Try to select more than one file

What is the expected result?
Being able to open multiple log file at once.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
Windows 2008 R2

It's not a bug but more a feature a request

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 17 Mar 2011 at 9:18

Please support reading zipped log

I have all the logs zipped as .gz file. would be really good to be able to read 
it directly.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 30 May 2013 at 1:59

Request: filtering on logfiles

please, add filtering at logfiles.
that is/could be a great plus point.

best regards
Thomas

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 2 Jul 2012 at 2:23

Clear capture content

It would be very nice if SnakeTail can provide a button to clear current 
capture content. I work with large server log files a lot, I want a fresh view 
every time the server restarts, so the log content is not mixed with info from 
last server running session. Currently I have no choice but delete server log 
files manually on each server restart which is rather tedious.


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
SnakeTail 1.8.2 on Win7 x64

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 11 Jun 2013 at 6:12

Latest file detection works oddly on Network shares

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.  Add a logfile directory to monitor on a network share... such as:
\\server\c$\Logs\MyLogPrefix*
2. If there are mutliple matching ones, for example, if the Logfile appends 
numbers... so the log files looks like MyLogPrefix1.log and MylogPrefix2.log 
(when 1 is full)

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I should see snaketail automatically grab the latest one such as 
MylogPrefix2.log.  Instead, it stays on MyLogPrefix1.log.

What I have found is that when this happen and I go to the file directory in 
Windows 7, MyLogPrefix2.log shows up, but has 0 file length. But it really has 
stuff in it. If I then go edit the file, Windows explorer refreshes with the 
right value... and then SnakeTail picks up the change.

I'm not sure if there is a way for snaketail to invoke some kind of manual 
refresh on the windows directory share or something.  Looks like an issue with 
windows network share directory caching.



What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.8.2 on windows 7

Please provide any additional information below.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 1 May 2013 at 7:55

Tail remote server EventLog

- Be able to specify which server we want to monitor.
- Server name should be part of the tab so that we can tell which is which.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 4 Mar 2013 at 7:43

Feature request: Clear log

It would be nice, if there was an option to clear the active log.
Maybe a shortcut like CTRL+X.

Thanks for a great app!

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 22 Feb 2013 at 12:08

Feature Request: Highlight the tab of updated files

Hi there, I love SnakeTail, it looks like a great tool that is remarkably 
missing from Windows admin (I usually use *nix systems and find the lack of 
tail disturbing!)

One thing that would be really handy to me is for an inactive tab to indicate 
that it has been updated.

Sincerely, Ben

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 27 Oct 2011 at 9:05

Keyword highlighting

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.
2.
3.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?


Please provide any additional information below.

- Add keyword highlighting.  Sentence highlighting is so common and every 
logging tool has it.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 16 Jan 2012 at 8:14

Feature request: Add a browse button in the View Options -> Log File tab

SnakeTail is a great program and especially the keyword highlight and custom 
colors are a great way to keep track of log file.

I monitor log files that frequently have a different file name. For example, 
there are log files that each day write the data to a new file. Now, with the 
current version of SnakeTail 1.5.1, I have two options to manage this:

1). I can choose File -> Open File, and then browse to the correct log file. 
This works simple and makes it easy to find the most recent log file to 
monitor. However, this means that the formatting and keyword highlight have to 
be manually configured again.

2). I can right click in a already open log file, choose View Options -> then 
Log File, and then change the log location in the File Path box. This will 
enable me to keep the formatting and keyword highlight, however I've to 
manually type the file path there. In effect that means I have to browse to the 
directory, copy this on into the File Path box. Then search the correct log 
file in the directory, press F2 to select the file name, and copy also this to 
the File Path box. This is, like option 1, also a tedious process for multiple 
log files.

To summarize: 
It would be great if a 'browse for'-button (perhaps something small like three 
dots) could be made in the View Options -> Log File so that the user easily can 
browse to his new log file while keeping the formatting and keyword highlight 
settings.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 1 Sep 2011 at 6:35

Cannot open an arbitrary file from the command line

Steps to reproduce:
In the command prompt run: SnakeTail.exe C:\somelogdir\somelogfile.log

Result:
Failed to open session xml file, please ensure it is valid file:

   C:\somelogdir\somelogfile.log

There is an error in XML document (1, 1).
Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1, position 1.


Product version 1.3.0.0

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 22 Apr 2011 at 1:13