Which is the best viewer for NLog? [closed]

Question

Which is the best viewer for NLog?

log2console

sentinel

Other?

Lagging

the best seems like a subjective metric. – Centner

I like insightextensions.codeplex.com much better then those list in your question. – Pelagias

@Pelagias ... is commercial, you should note that. log2console and sentinel are free. – Fogbow

@Fogbow - and your point is? If you want free go for it. ReflectInsight is a more superior product in terms of speed, what it can log in structured format, distributed logging and live logging that can be up and running for years with a minimal memory footprint. The other viewers that where mention are ok for debugging during development but they don't come anywhere close to being enterprise ready, especially in production environments. – Pelagias

Try my solution. I decided to develop this program, because log2console constantly hung up when it received a lot of logs. P.S. LogViewer works only over UDP. – Ticktock

Answer 1

Although a very old question, the same question has been haunting me this last couple of weeks. Here is my little contribution to the hive-mind:

I found that for a lightweight client or client/server application using a simplistic, lightweight log viewer like log2console with NLogViewer target' filled with additional parameters fields made it both easy to use/setup and customize, while being readable and easy to find the info I looked for.

I used a UDP listener in the log viewer, and the following target definition in my NLog configuration:

<target xsi:type="NLogViewer" name="logviewer" address="udp://localhost:7071" onOverflow="Split">
    <parameter name="Message&#9;&#9;" layout="${message}" />
    <parameter name="Callsite&#9;&#9;" layout="${callsite:includSourcePath=true}"/>
    <parameter name="Exception&#9;" layout="${exception:separator=&#13;&#10;----&#13;&#10;:innerExceptionSeparator=&#13;&#10;-- -- -- -- --&#13;&#10;:maxInnerExceptionLevel=5:format=Message,Type,StackTrace:innerFormat=Message,Type,StackTrace}" />
    <parameter name="StackTrace&#9;" layout="${newline}&#9;${stacktrace_custom}" />
</target>

Notes:

1. The 	 is tab, which helps make it a bit more readable.
2. The 
 is newline, since I couldn't use ${newline} in a layout renderer's parameter (an NLog limitation).
3. In my example I use a very detailed layout, you can of course edit it however you like, use the $exception layout renderer doc page for reference.

Hope someone finds this helpful

Ignatz

Log2Console now supports NLog explicitly. See instructions – Scuta

I had to use udp4:// to get it to work, and the more basic configuration suggested by @JaredBeach. – Rustic

Answer 2

I quite like Log4View:

http://www.log4view.com/log4view/

(It is a commercial tool, though. I think they should pay me for making advertisement for them, but sadly they do not...)

Supporter

The community edition is free and seems to be quite good. Thanks! – Copywriter

Answer 3

Please check out nlogcruncher very simple to use and free.

<target name="network" xsi:type="Network" address="udp://127.0.0.2:4000"
    layout="${date:format=HH\:MM\:ss.fff} | ${logger} | ${level} | ${message}"/>

There is also NLog Viewer but it only as a trial.

Selfconfidence

Can you get exception and stacktrace information here? I am struggling with Sentinel and Log2Console apps, can only get the message part through. – Mossbunker

Just use the following layout to get exception and stack trace. layout="${longdate} ${message} ${exception:format=tostring}" – Selfconfidence

It's looking like this isn't working for me any longer on Windows 10 - latest. Any ideas if this is still supported or working? – Jemima