custom detail panes/visualizers

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jpierce
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:51 pm

custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by jpierce »

I like the details pane, but I'm finding I need a bit more. Our logs sometimes have JSON or XML in them. It would be very handy to be able to click on a line and the XML show up a visualizer panel. It would be a pane on the bottom or on the right of the grid, marking up the data in a very pretty-printed way.
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 555
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:30 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by admin »

Hello,

Interesting idea. If we have a visualizer for JSON/XML pretty-print, I'm concerned about some non JSON/XML in the way that could break the JSON/XML parsing. Usually in the logs I've seen there's sometimes some text around this JSON/XML, like a log saying "JSON fetched from https://blabla.com: { a:1 } ".

In your case, do you have a log entry field that contains only pure JSON/XML? If yes, you could use a new feature like: right-click on a log entries table cell (for this specific field), then pick a new option "pretty-print" that would open a new visualizer window. But if you have some non-JSON/XML text around, we would have to select the text to format in the "entry details" bottom panel, and right-click > "pretty-print" on this selected text only... less convenient.

What do you think?
jpierce
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:51 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by jpierce »

What I was thinking was that you'd have a parser parse the xml/json out into a user defined column. And that you could tell LogMX that the column is XML or JSON (or other visualizers that I haven't thought of yet - possibly call stacks?) That'd be easy to do when writing java parsers (some call like how you create user defined fields). Not sure how feasible that would be in the UI for the other parsers, though.

And I can see how that might be a limiting design, as it would kind of assume one JSON or one XML column per line. That might be a bad assumption. Maybe the right-click, View As option would be better.
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 555
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:30 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by admin »

Oh that's actually a good idea :D: we could use the Parser API method LogFileParser.getUserDefinedFieldsClasses() to let the Parser declare a user-defined field as JSON, XML, or other content-types. Or we could also maybe have a new method "getUserDefinedFieldsContentTypes()" for that. I think letting the Log Parser actually parse the JSON/XML would have an impact on the performance, because it means that a lot of JSON/XML parsing+prettyprinting would happen when the logs are loaded, which may not even be needed if these custom fields are not seen by the user. The idea could be that when the user clicks on an entry having such a field, LogMX would know it's JSON/XML, so it would pretty-print its content in the log entries details panel at the bottom.

What do you think?
jpierce
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:51 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by jpierce »

Right, you got what I meant. When I said the parser would parse the xml/json, I meant parse the text and break out just the xml/json text into a separate column. I didn't mean parse the actual structure beyond that.
jpierce
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:51 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by jpierce »

And I feel like it might be good to have a separate pane for the data rather than replacing the details pane. I'm not sure. Is it possible you'd want to still see the details on these pages anyway? Maybe the details pane could be tabbed? Hmm, that would probably eat some of the vertical screen space which can be annoying. For me, it'd me more ideal to have the xml/json pane capable of being stuck to the right/left side of the grid, because that data tends to be kind of tall when pretty-printed.
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 555
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:30 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by admin »

OK thanks, added to our backlog. Yes, could be placed at the left or right of the entries table, but I guess that would be fine only if you have an ultra-wide monitor :) Or a new window, you could then use your window-arrangement features from your OS to have the current LogMX window and this one side by side (macOS and Windows do it pretty well now). I initially suggested the log entry details panel because by simply-double-clicking on its title "Entry details", it automatically expands in the window, and restores when you double-click again ;)
jpierce
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:51 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by jpierce »

I did not know about the double-click details bit. Would be nice to have a shortcut that did it as well, and for it to be listed under Window.
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 555
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:30 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by admin »

Good point, you're right. We will remove the option "Window" > "Minimize", and instead add an option to Maximize the Entry details panel (with a keyboard shortcut).

Thanks for your feedback!
admin
Site Admin
Posts: 555
Joined: Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:30 pm

Re: custom detail panes/visualizers

Post by admin »

Hello,

LogMX v7.7.0 has just been released, and it includes the "Maximize Entry details panel" feature :) (see menu "Window" > "Maximize entry details", or shortcut Ctrl+Shift+M)

Xavier
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