SpectraSim Documentation
Topic

The log panel

The log is one list of what you and the program did: opening and saving projects, importing a CAD model, changing steps, generating a mesh, starting, pausing, continuing, stopping and finishing a run, queued jobs, reports, exports, licence events and errors. It is hidden until you turn it on with View > Log panel.

Last updated

Theory

What is recorded

Each entry has a time, a level, a category and a short sentence, and the run it belongs to when there is one. The log records actions, never settings: the values you type into fields are not written to it.

  • Levels: information for something that happened, warning for something that stopped early or needs a look (a run you stopped, a recovered project), error for something that failed.
  • Categories: project, geometry, step, mesh, run, acoustics, queue, report, export, licence, error.

Where it is stored

With a project open, the log is the file activity_log.jsonl in the project's working folder (<name>_files), so it stays with the project, is kept when you save and is not part of the project file. With no project open, entries go to a session log in the program's data folder. The log keeps about the last two megabytes of entries: when the file is full, it moves to activity_log.1.jsonl and the oldest entries are dropped.

The log panel

View > Log panel shows or hides the panel at the bottom of the window; the choice is remembered. The panel shows the newest entries and follows the end of the list while you do not scroll up (untick Follow to stay where you are).

  • Show: all entries, warnings only, or errors only.
  • Category: one category or all of them.
  • Copy puts the lines you see on the clipboard.
  • Save as text or Save as CSV writes the whole log of the open project, limited to the category you chose, to a file you pick.

Reading it from outside

Each line of activity_log.jsonl is a JSON object with the keys id, ts, level, category, message and, for a run, run_id, so the file can be read by a script or a spreadsheet.

Valid range

Size

The log is capped at about two megabytes; very long sessions lose their oldest entries.

Not recorded

Field values, results and the contents of files are not written to the log. A run started from the command line is not recorded.