/jEdit/tags/jedit-4-0-pre5/doc/users-guide/activity-log.xml

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<appendix id="activity-log"><title>The Activity Log</title>
 <para>
  The <firstterm>activity log</firstterm> is very useful for
  troubleshooting problems, and helps when developing plugins.
 </para>
 <para>
  <guimenu>Utilities</guimenu>&gt;<guimenuitem>Activity Log</guimenuitem> displays
  the last 500 lines of the activity log. By default, the activity is shown in
  a floating window. It can be set to dock into the view in the
  <guibutton>Docking</guibutton> pane of the
  <guimenu>Utilities</guimenu>&gt;<guimenuitem>Global Options</guimenuitem>
  dialog box; see <xref linkend="docking" />.
  The complete
  log can be found in the <filename>activity.log</filename> file inside the
  jEdit settings directory, the path of which is shown inside the activity
  log window.
 </para>
 <para>
  jEdit writes the following information to the activity log:
 </para>
 <itemizedlist>
  <listitem><para>Information about your Java implementation (version,
  operating system, architecture, etc)</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para>All error messages and runtime exceptions (most errors
  are shown in dialog boxes as well; but the activity log usually
  contains more detailed and technical information)
  </para></listitem>
  <listitem><para>All sorts of debugging information that can be helpful
  when tracking down bugs</para></listitem>
  <listitem><para>Information about loaded plugins</para></listitem>
 </itemizedlist>
 <para>
  While jEdit is running, the log file on disk may not always accurately reflect
  what has been logged, due to buffering being done for performance reasons.
  To ensure the file on disk is up to
  date, invoke the <guimenu>Utilities</guimenu>&gt;<guimenuitem>Update Activity
  Log on Disk</guimenuitem> command. The log file is also automatically updated on
  disk when jEdit exits.
 </para>
</appendix>