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The settings you can find in the system menu* or in the Tail4Windows title bar*. Take a look.
Custom header color
The user can customize the header colors*, when you hover over the header, it appears a color button. Click this button and a color picker will appear.
Split window view
Tail4Windows offers you a splitview*, in this view, you can investigate some log lines, the live scroll is deactivate in the upper window.
Switch app mode
Since version 2.2 Tail4Windows supports two modes
- User mode
- Portable mode
In user mode, Tail4Windows saves all settings in the roaming folder of current Windows user. If the portable mode is active, Tail4Windows saves all settings in current Application folder. You can switch between this two modes, when you edit the main config file of Tail4Windows (T4W.exe.config). Change the value Portable to True, if you wish, Tail4Windows should run in portable mode. When you want switch back to user mode, change the value Portable to False.
Tail4Windows shows you the current mode in the StatusBar.
User mode
Portable mode
Convert a profile
If you have a roaming profile and you want run Tail4Windows in portable mode, you can convert your current profile:
- Open the command line tool
- Go to Tail4Windows Application folder
- Call the following command:
T4W.exe /convert local - Change the main config file:
<add key="Portable" value="True" /> - Start Tail4Windows
If you have a local profile and you want run Tail4Windows in user mode, you can convert your local profile:
- Open the command line tool
- Go to Tail4Windows Application folder
- Call the following command:
T4W.exe /convert roaming - Change the main config file:
<add key="Portable" value="False" /> - Start Tail4Windows
Tail4Windows can read the Windows event log. Select a event category, click Ok and press the Start button. You can use all advantages of Tail4Windows - highlighting, filtering, searching and you can save all your settings.
Hint: When you start Tail4Windows with admin rights, Tail4Windows shows you all categories of the Windows events.
* From version 2.0!
The first version of Tail4Windows had the advantage of the FileManager - now TailManager. This allowed any user to make arbitrary settings for log files. The disadvantage was that the FileManager did not work for dynamically created log files, for example files with a time stamp in the name. The new version of Tail4Windows confers this disadvantage!
At first, create a new entry in TailManager, setup all settings you want. Now press the pattern button.
The pattern util pops up. Here you can define a static part and the dynamic part of the name of your log file. Tail4Windows supports wildcards and regex pattern.
If you have enabled regex, Tail4Windows offers you a regex help util, click with Mouse to a any position, open the regex help and select a pattern you want. Tail4Windows insert the selected pattern, after that you can modify it.
When you are finish, press OK.
That's all, save your work and save all settings in TailManager. Please do not forget to activate "Use pattern" in TailManager. Now, Tail4Windows open always the right and current log file, also dynamically created files.
Hint: When you have your own patterns, you can add it to Tail4Windows, see Add custom patterns to Tail4Windows
If you want to add your own regex item, you have to edit the file DefaultPatterns.xml. There you will find some predefined patterns. Look at the current structure of such an entry.
A Regex item:
<Pattern>
<patternString>\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}</patternString>
<isRegex>True</isRegex>
</Pattern>
It is best to simply copy an existing entry and insert it into DefaultPatterns.xml. Change the new pattern with your custom settings, when you are finish save all changes!
When you open the TailManager now and click pattern button, your new entry will shown in the pattern list. You can also change the order of the patterns.
SmartWatch is implemented and works like a charm. But at the moment I have no time to write a Wiki for this. Sorry, so it is coming soon...
A Bookmark is like a marker. You can mark a certain log line, to find it easily again.
How to add/delete a Bookmark
When you click with the left mouse button on the very left margin, you mark this log line with a Bookmark, see picture
To delete a Bookmark, click with the left mouse button on the Bookmark symbol. When you insert a lot of Bookmarks and you want all delete, press the right mouse button on a Bookmark symbol. A context menu will shown with Delete all Bookmarks.
How to search/find a bookmarked log line
To find a bookmarked log line, open the search window, CTRL+F see Shortcuts. Enable search Bookmarks, now you have two options
- count all bookmarked log lines
- find all bookmarked log lines (press F3 to jump to the next result)
Tail4Windows know three different modes of selection:
- Single line
- Multi line
- Single word/sentence
To copy a whole single line, select a certain log line in Tail4Windows and copy the content into the clipboard of Windows, CTRL+C.
To copy the content of more lines into the clipboard, press the left mouse button and drag to the desire line. Tail4Windows show you a selection rectangle, when you are finish, release the mouse button and copy the content.
When you are only interested on a single word or sentence, than double click into a log line. Tail4Windows change this line and you can mark single words or a sentence.
The new version of Tail4Windows support a limitation of log lines to be displayed. In the Extras tab of the Options dialog you can find this setting. In the UI the minimum number is 50.000 lines. If you want a custom value, close Tail4Windows and open the config file T4W.exe.Config. Edit option <add key="LogLineLimit" value="-1" />, insert a number you want, save the config file and start Tail4Windows again. That's it.
Hint: -1 means a unlimited display of log lines.
Tail4Windows creates daily log files in folder logs. If an error occurred, please send me the concerning log file, I will investigate the problem and fix it as soon as possible.
Some users wants to change the current log level of Tail4Windows. Open the file log4net.xml in folder Config. The default log level is INFO, edit the following element
<root>
<level value="INFO" />
...
</root>
You can set the following log level
- ALL
- DEBUG
- INFO
- WARN
- ERROR
- FATAL
- OFF
Hint: Tail4Windows deletes all log files older than 5 days. At the moment this behaviour is static and not configurable.
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F1
Help -
Ctrl+G
Go To Line -
Ctrl+F
Find what -
Ctrl+Alt+F
Find what result -
Ctrl+O
Open file -
Ctrl+Alt+O
Open Windows event window -
Ctrl+M
Open TailManager -
Ctrl+Shift+F
Open Filter/HighlightManager -
Ctrl+N
Quick add -
Ctrl+E
Clear TextEditor window -
Ctrl+R
Start tail -
Ctrl+U
Stop tail -
Ctrl+C
Copy line in TextEditor -
Ctrl+T
New tab window -
Ctrl+W
Close tab window -
Ctrl+S
Quick save -
Alt+T
Always on top on/off -
Alt+F
Filter/Highlight on/off -
Ctrl+Alt+M
Minimize mainwindow -
F3
Searching forward -
F5
Refresh statistics -
Alt+A
Open font settings -
Ctrl+Q
Focus quick search -
MiddleMouse button over TailWindow
New tab window -
MiddleMouse button over TabHeader
Close tab window -
Ctrl+Alt+T
Show extended toolbar in Splitview