Open Log Viewer

In some cases, the best way to determine what went wrong with a program or operating system is by consulting the software’s log file. You don’t have to be a programmer to do this, as log files are basically text files which you can open with any text editor and even some web browsers. However, actually reading what’s written in the log file is where things can get tricky.

For this exact purpose, you could try using a simple app like Open Log Viewer.

First off, you should know that a log will record all the important events in the history of a program’s use and display it for your reading pleasure. It will record actions, important changes and interactions with other applications, but also problems that may occur, errors and crashes.

To help you better read a log file, each program will record its activity using some sort of classes, which are called logging levels. These are generally labeled as: Debug – useful information that can help with debugging an application, Info – general information about the app’s processes, Warning – situations that are threatening to the app, Error – well, errors, but they allow the program to continue running, and Fatal -  the errors that make the app crash.

Open Log Viewer lets you assign different colors for different logging levels. For example, its default color settings are green for Debug (so you know that the information is useful), yellow for Warnings, red for Error and Fatal (so you know that it’s really bad), while the Info levels are plain black on white text.

You can assign different colors if you feel like it, change both the text and background colors and also rename the regular expressions that identify the logging levels. For example, in some log files they may be written simply as “Warning”, while in others they may appear as “[WARNING]”.

Finally, you can make the program display only the certain logging levels that you are interested in. Even though it’s a simple tool, Open Log Viewer can be used to make the log reading process faster and more efficient.