Log4Moz, the premier mozilla-centric javascript logging framework has just gotten more… premier.

By hooking Log4Moz up to Chainsaw, Apache log4j’s pretty UI, we get a UI with some powerful features.  Namely, you can filter based on message text (using a regex even), level, source, etc.  Also, you can colorize the entries using the same expression mechanism.  In the screenshot below, you can see I have filtered to show only the messages with the word “noun” on them, and changed the background color of messages with “+++” in them.

The enhancements made to Log4Moz are to provide an XMLFormatter that rolls in a similar fashion to log4j’s XMLLayout and a SocketAppender that never forgets… to kill!  And by kill, I mean establish TCP connections.

If you are a gloda user and upgraded to the version I told you to expressly not upgrade to, then you can use this new functionality by creating a file “/tmp/chainsaw.ptr” with the contents “localhost:4448”.  Run Chainsaw, create an XMLSocketReceiver, and Bob’s your uncle.  Unfortunately, Bob is not your uncle when it comes to building chainsaw.  While maven no longer entirely angries up my blood, the process still leaves something to be desired.  (Using this ~/.m2/settings.xml with “-P default” may take fewer years off your life if you take this path.)

These enhancements are currently in the gloda repository, and perhaps will make their way back upstream or what not?  (Land them quick, before I add all forms of crazy helpers like JSON-ing extra arguments and sending them across the wire too!)

UPDATE: Of course, it’s always a good idea to pull from the tip, as the revision linked above had a bit of foolishness with timeouts.