Elephant
"Shoot... what did he say again? I just got disconnected."
"Didn't that folk already loot that rare item 10 minutes ago?"
"I really wish I could remember the name of the item linked on the guild chat yesterday at 9:00 PM."
...
Already been in one of these situations? Don't be annoyed anymore, here is the solution!
Solution to chat loss annoyance
Elephant logs the chat for you in the background even when you get disconnected. It saves the WHISPER & BATTLE.NET, RAID, INSTANCE & BATTLEGROUND, PARTY, GUILD, SAY, YELL and OFFICER chats separately, but also all general chats (General, Trade, LocalDefense, ...), custom chats you are currently on, achievements, loots and finally system messages (auctions, rolls, server going down, ...). You can easily go through all these logs, thanks to a straightforward interface displaying all the access buttons on the right side of the main window. You can access the options of the addon by typing /elephant and also bind a key to pop up the addon.
Elephant gives you the ability to copy up to 100,000 (yes, 100k) characters of logs to another application. A BBCode feature is even included, letting you copy/paste a chat with colors and links to an item database in a very quick and simple way to your favorite forum.
This is THE addon that you should install if you want to never forget what somebody told you in game. Be a pro of managing hell tells, go peacefully AFK for a few minutes, or be an awesome role player. Elephant is also perfectly designed for Guild Leaders, Officers and Raid Leaders particularly because it restores the chats after you've been disconnected.
Main features
- Logs the chats in the background, with a limit of 10,000 lines for each chat (Blizzard's default is 161 lines for everything).
- Saves the logs when you log out or get disconnected.
- Display the chats with timestamps, or using your Prat settings if you have it installed.
- Copy the chat and paste it in other applications (BBCode supported!), up to 100,000 characters.
- Save the chat and combat log in two different files on your computer (using the default Blizzard logging system).
Other features
- Use filters to avoid logging some of the custom channels you join.
- Enable/disable logging for each chat separately.
- Item links in logs are displayed in their proper color and are clickable.
- Player names in the main window are clickable.
- ...and much more!
Community
Report an issue (bug & suggestions): https://www.wowace.com/projects/elephant/issues
Sorry if these questions has asked before. 1-Can you tell us how long does it takes to save the log to a file? Because I just click it and I see it creat WoWChatLog.txt in /WoW/Log, but the TXT file is empty. Does it save when I log off? I tried also /script ReloadUI(), but it doesn't save too. I'm using 1.0.15 though. 2-Can you tell it to save only certain channel's log? Thanx alot :D
Great addon, I love it.
I was coming to suggest a way to enable/disable logging of all "General" channels, all "LocalDefense" channels, etc. instead of having to disable each zone separately, and saw your suggestion about how to disable logging of new channels by default. Thanks for that! I'd still suggest adding the ability to enable/disable logging of all "General" etc. channels. :)
Edit: remembered my other thought just after I hit the post button. Is it possible to create separate logfiles for different chat types? Currently everything that isn't combat text is logged to WoWChatLog.txt. Would it be possible to put, say, General chat in a separate logfile?
A - Increase the default log limit from 200 to 2000 (I know I can change it in the chatlog.conf.lua, but alot of people don't)
B - Extend the timestamps to be more thorough by including the date, and increase the width of the chatlog window as a result of a bigger timestamp
C - Do not have the logging of other chats other than Whispers/Guild/Party, enabled by default. (It freezes my game for about a minute whenever I try and load a high-volume channel such at the CT_Raidassist channel to disable it)
D - Add a "chats" button that shows the current right-click menu. For about two weeks I thought you had completely gotten rid of other chats other than Whispers when I upgraded Chatlog from an older version that had the whispers/guild/party buttons. Because I didn't realize I could right click the background
New release out with the support of German, thanks to Harl ;)
@ Grummy: I will surely add an option to enable/disable logging by default when you join a new channel :)
Thanks for pointing out where to disable logging of new channels. Now it's just great, awsome, splendid, brilliant, magnificent etc... :)
@ XMinioNX: If you wish to disable logging by default when you join a new channel, change this:
(Line 288) ChatLog_Logs[index] = {}; ChatLog_Logs[index]["id"] = id; ChatLog_Logs[index]["name"] = name; ChatLog_Logs[index]["enabled"] = 1; ChatLog_Logs[index]["logs"] = {};
...to this: ChatLog_Logs[index] = {}; ChatLog_Logs[index]["id"] = id; ChatLog_Logs[index]["name"] = name; ChatLog_Logs[index]["enabled"] = 0; ChatLog_Logs[index]["logs"] = {};
@ calrayray: It is in the ToDo List ;)
@ shards_ofthe_soul: Yeah, I can try to do this, it's a quite cool idea ;p
@ Antikleia: It is possible technically, but the problem is that ChatLog is "catching" every single message that *should be* written the Chat Window. You also have to know that an AddOn can easily hide messages that *should be* written to the Chat Window (that is surely what happens with the AddOn you have installed).
But the problem is that it does not "say" that it is going to hide the message. So if I would like to only log messages that are displayed, I would have to know which messages are hidden by the other AddOn you have installed. ChatLog would have to "know" ALL the AddOns that are doing this, and it is nearly impossible. So I think I would not be able to only log messages that are displayed :/
(Maybe someone have a clue one this... please tell me if you do ;) )
@ harl: I downloaded your files and I'm going to check if it is working with the last release of ChatLog. The bad thing is that I don't have the German release of WoW so I will only check if every variable/function is okay . It shouldn't be long. I will tell you if I need additional information ;)
hi, as of ChatLog version 1.1.3 and WoW version 1.11.1, i've created a german localization for this addon. if you wish to integrate it, please add the lines:
localization.de.lua
to the .toc file. the localization.de.lua mentioned can be downloaded here: http://www.harl.de/wow/addons/localization.de.rar
i hope it works for someone - at least it does for me, but if there's a problem with it i could probably fix, i'll try do so. (typos and patch-related changes included)
--- additionally, i'm having 3 feature requests (though of lesser importance):
1. an option to increase the maximum number of lines being saved to the SavedVariables' ChatLog.lua from the fixated 200 to at least 500 or more. the bunch of 'log started' 'log stopped' lines and the 2 " "(empty) values added with each 'header' can already take up a significant amount of lines when logging in and out or changing areas often, so 200 is just not enough in such a case. i'm aware that more lines being saved also leads to an increased memory load, and increased time when 'extracting and displaying', and i'm also aware of your 'Clear/Delete' buttons, but maybe you can at least reduce the 'log started' 'log stopped' ouput to a minimum amount; ex. by checking if anything else was saved since the last 'log started/stopped' message and therefore deleting the previous unnecessary line(s), and replacing the 2 " " lines with something more line-saving (or just drop them?).
2. an option to switch from a per-character to a per-realm based saving of the logs (therefore using the other SavedVariables directory). (correlates with "~ Make a "general log" for all characters.", i think?) sure, for playing on a RolePlaying realm the per-character saving might be of more use than on a PvE/PvP realm, but with the latter being (mostly) OOC -at least for me- i often chat to the same people despite any changing of chars, and a per-realm saving of the logs would then make a little more sense to me. with that, of course, the maximum of lines being saved (in one array) increases again, so there'd eventually be an imbalance between speed and usability, i'm not sure though. (i was editing and messing around a bit with an older version (1.1) of ChatLog, saving just everything in one big array and totally dropped the lines' limit. the loading starts to take -just a little tick- too much at about 1000 lines being saved. not sure, but maybe that hints somewhere.) (at that time i had also increased the window size to 800,800 and tried to reduce the whole thing to its root function of just logging and nothing else, not even clearing or anything, to reduce code (came out to be about 80 lines) and screen space used by buttons etc. i'm not much into scripting, so this was only for myself. i personally like that very much when a program or script has many options in a background-way, but things also have to be basic/functional and not to take up more space than necessary, so i'm also some kind of a minimalist. - i also realize that an addon like this is no replacement for an external log file or log file parser which reads the WoW*Log.txt's (or other log files). so if it'd all get choppy with the increased log lines etc, i'd also be happy to stick with the 200.)
3. an option to specify some filters for these specific patterns of channels not to be logged which would otherwise (like it is now) automatically added to the 'other chats' category. (correlates with "? Log specific chat messages (CTRaid, ...)") having addons in mind like PanzaComm, Sky (including all the SkyZone*'s etc) and other similar addons and maybe other custom channels one's regularily joining now and then but doesn't want to be logged automatically - thinking of unnoticed background memory and cpu load, though i know it's not that much anyway, so it's more an optical revision (as the 'drop down' list isn't That huge and unneeded logs then have to be deleted manually each time, which especially confuses when using those addons mentioned). ---
that's it. i'm sorry if i've babbled.. err, i mean.. if i've mentioned anything that's already been discussed somewhere or even discarded.
I'm using ChatLog together with Addons like CT_Raid... or GuildEventmanager. ChatLog logs all messages sent through the Comm-Channels of these Addons. Maybe there is a way only logging what is displayed in one of the Chat-windows?
Not sure if I catch what you're asking for... But as for a mod that tracks mail, there's a mod that does this quite well, called MailTo: http://www.curse-gaming.com/en/wow/addons-1496-1-mailto.html
Is that kind of what you're looking for?
Is it possible to change the right-click menu to a drop down list shown at the top of the screen? I think it would be a bit more streamlined, but who knows, I could be wrong ^_^
is the combatlog loggable?
New release out.
I prefered not to change the default setting: when you join a new channel for the first time, its log will be enabled by default. I could also decide to disable it, but I prefered to do this way because it is the aim of this AddOn: log the chats. :p
Thanks for your advice XMinioNX and for your answer spethin.
@ XMinioNX: I think it is indeed something bad that ChatLog enables by default the log of every single channel. What I am going to change in the next release is this default config. When you will join a new channel, it will be DISABLED by default, so you won't have gigs of logs in the ChatLog.lua file.
I think I will add a "disable all" and a "enable all" button in order to configure ChatLog rapidely.
@ cherie: I'm not pretty sure it is possible to log this, but I'll check in the next few days (I am moving from one place to another at the moment and I don't have a lot of time).
i been trying to find a mod that tracks my MAIL LOG as well, on CT_MailMod
when i have it announce processes, it says, <CTMailMod> Purple Lotus x20 from Sneakster (echo's on the general window mostly)
any possibility that it can log those too? or maybe can point me to another addon if u know one =) been trying to look for a while.
so turn them off. :S Note: I agree that it might be a good idea for pb_ee1 to set some sane defaults for all of the channels.
To turn them off, right click on the channel on the top, and select the channel from the drop down, and click the "disable" button. Took me a few minutes to disable the multitude of channels. I check it every so often incase ChatLog "learns" a new channel or two.. and disable them.
-Seph
Thanks FalconSpirit for this bug report. This will be corrected in the next release, which should be out very soon ;p
So I noticed since the 1.11 patch, stuff said by the Raid Leader or stuff said in Raid Warnings wasn't being logged. So I went into Chatlog.lua and added
ChatLog:RegisterEvent("CHAT_MSG_RAID_LEADER"); ChatLog:RegisterEvent("CHAT_MSG_RAID_WARNING");
and changed line 112 (now 114 because of the added lines) to
if ( event == "CHAT_MSG_RAID" ) or ( event == "CHAT_MSG_RAID_LEADER" ) or ( event == "CHAT_MSG_RAID_WARNING" ) then
which seemed to work.
Thanks for the update. Hope you can fix the # of chars.. but even this is SO nice! -Seph
New release 1.1.1 out ;)
I have added the possibility to copy the logs by including what I called a "Copy window". There is one major problem though: the Fontstring frame that I am using to display the text and to enable its highlight can only display 4096 characters. It is still possible to select & copy everything, but the bottom text of the window may be invisible.
If anyone has an idea how to fix this, I would appreciate =)
Thanks for your suggestions Meranaldar ;)
I'm going to see if it is difficult -or not- to log system messages, but it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm adding the ability to bind a key to open the window to the todo list ;p
I'm thinking at the moment of a way to reduce considerably the loading time that the AddOn takes when you change from one chat to another. But the next improvement will be a possibility to copy/paste the text. ;)