Log Explorer

How to use Log Explorer

Load content by dropping files, using the file picker, or pasting from the clipboard. Inputs are normalized to UTF-8 before indexing. Rows stay unwrapped; use the custom scrollbars, arrow keys, Page Up, Page Down, Home, End, or Ctrl + wheel for horizontal movement. When content is already loaded, or when multiple new inputs arrive together, Log Explorer asks whether to load the new input into the current source or as a fresh source. The dialog offers separate combine and new columns with Append and Zip variants. Press Esc in that dialog to cancel the load.

The top bar keeps the most common actions visible and moves secondary commands into the app menu. Profiles live in that menu together with export, import, and alternate copy commands. When multiple sources are combined, each source keeps its own background tint across all stages so appended and zipped rows remain traceable after filtering, sorting, replacing, or diffing. Use Flatten sources from the menu when you want the current loaded content to behave like a single source again.

The Operations panel also shows quick profile chips. Empty clears the current pipeline and view state but keeps the loaded source. Last is the implicit snapshot from the previous session. Right-click a profile chip to rename it, overwrite it from the current pipeline, or delete it. Drag named profile chips to reorder them.

Each operation row is selectable. Only enabled operations from the top down to the selected row affect the preview. Disabled rows stay visible but do not contribute. If the next enabled row after the selected stage is a Filter, lines that would stay after that Filter are previewed in blue.

• Filter: include and exclude lists, with per-clause case sensitivity, plus source toggles colored the same way as source lines. Clause editors are multiline; each non-empty line acts as an alternative match for that clause.
• Replace: whole-stage text replacement, including multi-line search and replacement.
• Sort: positional and anchor-based extraction. Non-parsable rows stay attached to the nearest preceding parsable row and move as a block.
• Diff: positional numeric or temporal delta. Non-parsable rows stay attached to the preceding parsable anchor row. Applying the inverted diff right after the normal diff restores the cached original stage.

Middle click opens the previous stage for the same row, and Ctrl+middle click moves forward again. The preview can overscroll near the start and end of the file so the target row still aligns under the pointer. Shift plus navigation extends the current selection.

Keyboard actions outside editors: Ctrl+A selects the current stage, Ctrl+C copies selection, Enter adds the selection to the current Filter or inserts a new include Filter after the selected stage, Esc does the same for exclude clauses or clears selection, Delete creates a delete-style Replace, and F, R, S, D create Filter, Replace, Sort, and Diff stages.

Mouse selection is copyable. Copy Column uses the current selection width across the whole preview. Copy Block copies the current rectangular selection across its selected line span. Hovering a row highlights it and shows its source path or source label in the status bar. Double-click a row to add a new filter that keeps only that source. Profiles persist locally, can be saved by name, exported as JSON, and imported by button or file drop.

Single click smart-selects the structure under the pointer: identifiers, numbers with unit suffixes, decimals, IPs, versions, paths, URLs, GUID-like values, nested identifiers, dates, times, datetimes, and whitespace with nearby line endings. Clicking a quote character selects the quoted text without the quotes. Clicking a bracket character, including an HTML/XML tag bracket, selects the content between the matching delimiters without the delimiters. Clicking inside an existing selection grows it from token to delimiter content, then to the delimiters themselves, then to enclosing JSON/XML/HTML structures where applicable; clicking the same delimiter again also grows content to include the delimiters. Ctrl+click inside that selection does the opposite and shrinks back toward the clicked part. Ctrl+click outside a selection picks the smallest useful part, such as a GUID group or datetime component. Click the line-number gutter or press Ctrl+Esc to clear selection quickly. Clicking =, ==, ===, =>, !=, <=, or >= selects the surrounding expression inside comma, semicolon, or bracket-separated lists.

How should the new input be loaded?

Zip interleaves rows and inserts empty lines when a source has no row at that position. Press Esc to cancel.