Five months of programming.
Way too many hours of debugging.
Listening to the feedback of a selected group of beta testers.
Waisting too many thread IDs on Help Me topics.
Bugging busy script developers for way too long with my questions.

All that just with only one purpose: a script.

I can now present you the immediate availability of my third public Messenger Plus! Live script. Hereby, I present you:

• ...a browser - A log files browser window which let you browse through your log files and view information about it. Additionally, you can view session information of your log files and if you specify your chat log encryption password, you can also view the sessions of encrypted log files. From this window, you can choose a folder or file to execute an encryption action on.
  
• ...encryption actions - By the use of a user-friendly window, you can choose files to encrypt, decrypt or change the password of. It shows you basic information about the files, such as file size and last modification time, and lets you set the options for the process, such as your password and the output folder. To prevent you from accidentally hitting the Start button, a confirmation first must be accepted before the process starts. Then, you can see the progress of the action by the use of progress bars and in the status column of the files list.
  
• ...log merging (v1.1+) - A lot of people have a main desktop computer and a secondary laptop or computer at someone else's house. When both these systems have Plus! installed and keep log files, it may be very annoying to keep those logs together. For example, you could copy all log files from one computer to your main computer, but you'd be left with 2 log files per contact. Here's where the Log Merge feature can help you.
  In Log Manager, log merging means that you select 2 or more log files and merge them into 1 log file. This can be helpful in the case of multiple systems, or if you simply want to merge all log files of one month/contact into 1 log file to use as backups for example. The log merge feature sorts all sessions by their date and in case you select encrypted files, it will try to decrypt these with a specified password before the merging starts. You can also choose to immediately encrypt the merged file if you want.
  
• ...customization options - You're the boss. If you don't want the session information to be shown, you can turn it off. If you think you've found a bug, you can turn on Log Manager's script debugging option to send all actions it takes to Plus! Live's Script Debugging window. If you want to restore the default settings, you can click Restore Defaults. It's up to you what you want and what you don't want.
  
• ...multilingual support - Log Manager provides translators to translate every message used in the script, without the need to rewrite the interfaces XML. All translation actions are done using the Win32 API, which is much faster and more effective. Translations are saved in an XML file, and the default English translation also contains a lot of translation notes to clarify what a specific message stands for. If the language of a user isn't included in the script, the user can try to look in the Download Languages window, which shows all available languages for Log Manager and lets him/her download the language of choice directly into Log Manager.
  
• ... an updater - Every time the script starts, it'll check for new updates. If it finds a new version, it'll inform the user about this and gives him/her the ability to download and install it. All this is accomplished through a simple user interface, providing the user the new version number, the release date and the release notes. In a later version, I might want to add an option to turn the auto-updater off, but I seem to have forgot this at the moment.

• In the Preferences window, when you choose a language and click Apply twice, the navigation links act weird. I guess this is a Plus! issue when you call SetControlText on a right-aligned LinkControl to set it to the same text as it already contains. I don't really know how to fix this properly.
  
• In the Browse window, when you select a folder with subfolders in it containing valid log files and start an encryption action, those log files aren't added to the list and may give you a "No valid log files found" error. Currently, this is a built-in limitation to prevent Messenger hanging while browsing through hundreds of files. I may want to add an option to specify how many levels deep the browser should look for files, but that depends on public request. So, if you think this should be implemented, please tell me! I make this script to fit the taste of the public, not only to fit mine.
  
• When you choose "Merge Logs..." from the script menu, it'll try to open 2 files which may not exist. This is a remainder of the testing period and I forgot to remove that. It'll be fixed in the next update, or you can already change it now by searching in "Log Manager.js" for:
  

  code:

  ---

  case "MnuMerge":
     var array = [
        PathAppend(Pref["LogsLoc"], "augustus 2007\\<snipped to avoid spam>.ple"),
        PathAppend(Pref["LogsLoc"], "augustus 2007\\<snipped to avoid spam> (2).ple")
     ];
     LoadWnd("WndMerge", LoadMerge, 0, array);
     break;

  ---

  and replace it with:
  

  code:

  ---

  case "MnuMerge":
     LoadWnd("WndMerge", LoadMerge);
     break;

  ---

  My apologies for this.

Looking good!

Nice one
Keep on going Matti!

Looks like you made the news Looking awesome.

I love the script, very well done. Just 1 suggestion



Have those clickable and it opens the log at the Session point inside that window (or in the normal Log Viewer).

quote:

---

Originally posted by SonicSam
I love the script, very well done. Just 1 suggestion

[Image]

Have those clickable and it opens the log at the Session point inside that window (or in the normal Log Viewer).

---

Cool script good job

Amazing script, amazingly done.
Good job.

Nice interfaces Mattike ;o

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mattike

quote:

---

Originally posted by SonicSam
I love the script, very well done. Just 1 suggestion

[Image]

Have those clickable and it opens the log at the Session point inside that window (or in the normal Log Viewer).

---

Well, I'm actually waiting for the next Messenger Plus! Live to support BrowserControls. Then, I may be able to re-create the Log Viewer and then make those links open the log viewer. Because at the moment, I rely on the command line functions of Log Viewer.exe, which only allow me to open, encrypt, decrypt or change the password of a log file, there is no option to view a log file and scroll to a specific session.

---

Well, first of all: thanks for all your comments! It makes me happy to know that those 5 months weren't just for making a script no-one would care about.

As for the next version, I can already say that it's very likely that it'll carry the version number 1.1 and that the main change will be a Log Merge feature, enabling you to select two log files (e.g. "user@hotmail.com.ple" and "user@hotmail.com (2).ple") and let you then merge those logs into one, sorted-by-session-date log file. The main reason I'd like to implement this, is because some people have logs on multiple computers and may want to copy them all to one place and merge the related log files (same month, same e-mail). The GUI is almost done and pretty much the same as the Encryption window, so now it's time for me to start coding the merging functions.

I'll try to keep you up-to-date as much as possible on this, because I think I already kept this project secret for too long.

Would be lovely to see a merge feature for next releases (I know that mattike already said I would be )... sometimes you have one html file before activate the encryption or when you select a different folder registry option and one encrypted file in other folde, if it's the case... and you want to merge all the files together in one unique file encrypted... first time I opened the script I though that the "ADD FILE" button was for this...

My extra idea is the option of merge not only 2 encrypted files or 2 html files... but 1 encrypted file with 1 html file and the option of and encrypted or not output file

btw how about save the size of the log browser window is kind of annoying have to resize it each time... and I think that the width of the browser tree window is two strait... sometimes is hard for me to see the email address of each contact...

quote:

---

Originally posted by warmth
Would be lovely to see a merge feature for next releases (I know that mattike already said I would be )... sometimes you have one html file before activate the encryption or when you select a different folder registry option and one encrypted file in other folde, if it's the case... and you want to merge all the files together in one unique file encrypted... first time I opened the script I though that the "ADD FILE" button was for this...

My extra idea is the option of merge not only 2 encrypted files or 2 html files... but 1 encrypted file with 1 html file and the option of and encrypted or not output file

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by warmth
btw how about save the size of the log browser window is kind of annoying have to resize it each time... and I think that the width of the browser tree window is two strait... sometimes is hard for me to see the email address of each contact...

---

Add this to your script and it becomes perfect!

quote:

---

Originally posted by riahc4
Add this to your script and it becomes perfect!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by MattikeI can tell you that those requests are already fully implemented!

I'll have a look at it.

---

UPDATE:
Development is going very well these days. Yesterday, I fixed an issue which caused the script to read the decrypted file too fast during the merging process, causing it to fail. This has been fixed by adding a 200 ms timeout after decryption and seems to work fine on my computer. (No BETA's were yet released to testers.)

Today, I can say that one of my most wanted additions is finally working. I've had lots of trouble with it before, but today I tried a different approach to do it, and with success. Today, I can say that Log Manager will be able to place images in a pop-up menu! The image explains all!

what more can I say... just beutiful... thanks for listen to me...

Note: I am kind of sad cause you didn't contact me... You must already have many tester... !!! I would be glad to help u... keep working...

quote:

---

Originally posted by warmth
what more can I say... just beutiful... thanks for listen to me...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by warmth
Note: I am kind of sad cause you didn't contact me... You must already have many tester... !!! I would be glad to help u... keep working...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by MattikeMaybe, in a later stage, I'll add you.

---

oooh the pretty colours. I like pictures in buttons

Log Manager has been updated to version 1.1.008! Check the first post to find out more!

That seems a little wrong, Lol.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mizery_Made
[ Image ]

That seems a little wrong, Lol.

---

i LOVE the merge script

so damn useful lol

Decrypting makes your CPU at very high load(core2 duo e6600@2.8ghz). the last time i tried to decrypt some big logs and my pc stopped working. i had to restart it manually. arround 20-25 Log Viewer.exe was runned

also is it possible to make it auto merge files with numbers like (2) (3)?
for example:
December 2007 (2) to December 2007
without having to un-tick many

Normally it shouldn't open so many decryption processes at once, but it should wait until the current one is finished. However, the way of determining this is really tricky because the script can't really determine if the decryption is done or not. I can also understand that decrypting can heat up your CPU, but that's because I don't actually own the control about the decrypting process itself. The script depends on Plus!' Log Viewer.exe, whereas other scripts use only JScript or homemade DLLs which the developer has made himself.

As for auto-merging, I understand that there's a huge request for scheduled tasks or automatic actions, but for the moment this is not an easy task. Plus!' scripting system has no specific function to let something happen at an exact moment (e.g. every day at 5 pm) and thus I'd have to use timers instead. But those can have serious complications, e.g. the script may not run at the time the task is planned. And also, I can't think of an easy way to get a GUI for all those possibilities so the user can define what should happen.

I recommend you to do the decryption in smaller parts instead of decrypting them all at once. Log Manager is out of development at the moment, as I'm busy with Countdown Live 2 at the moment. In fact, Log Manager doesn't need to be made with the Plus! Live scripting system, and maybe it would be better if it was a stand-alone application so it could use everything normal programs can. Unfortunately, I don't own the skills to write something in C++ or something. But if I would learn C++ one day, I may want to write a Log Manager which can really manage logs.

Hiya,
I'm just trying this now and I'm trying to get it to merge some files together for me and it just repeatedly is hanging each time.

It instantly jumps up to 'Overall status: x% completed' (usually quite high like 75% or 65% or something) and then just sits there and doesn't change at all and just hangs

The status remains as 'waiting' for both files as well.
Another thing I've just noticed is that the original files I have selected to be merged are no longer there (luckily I was using a backup copy to test with or I'd have lost my files now!!!)

also wondering - are you having to manually parse the log files yourself to merge them or can log viewer.exe do it for you?

The only options I can see for Log viewer.exe are:

viewlog
encrypt
decrypt
changepwd

The merging process is handled by Log Manager itself. Basically, it reads the files, splits them up in their sessions and stores those sessions in an array. Then, the array is sorted by date and then Log Manager writes the new file.

I'm sorry that it's not working properly for you, but I'm afraid there's few I can do about this. The script fully depends on Log Viewer.exe and there's really nothing I can do to provide a better method. In fact, the script can't tell whether decryption is actually done, since I can't communicate with the process itself. Unfortunately, people want me to do big things, like scheduled tasks and such, but I'm afraid that would cause it all to hang even more, cause more trouble and, well, I have no idea how I should program that with a Plus! script. Yes, sure, why not program a DLL? Well, VS2005 fails here, so I can't even try to start on learning C++ or another serious language.

Anyway, back onto your problem. Maybe you could provide some more information?

• How many files are you trying to merge?
  
• Are those files encrypted?
  
• How large (file size) are the files?
  
• What are your computer specifications?

I decided to try trouble shoot so just did it with two small files to test - same result.
They're not encrypted at all, just plain.
they're under 100kb each.

computer is 2gb RAM, c2d processor - pretty high spec basically - easily enough for something this basic.

How do you get log manager to merge files?
I downloaded the scripting manually and couldn't see anything about it there, where did you get the info for about it?

thanks

quote:

---

Originally posted by nila
I decided to try trouble shoot so just did it with two small files to test - same result.
They're not encrypted at all, just plain.
they're under 100kb each.

computer is 2gb RAM, c2d processor - pretty high spec basically - easily enough for something this basic.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by nila
How do you get log manager to merge files?
I downloaded the scripting manually and couldn't see anything about it there, where did you get the info for about it?

---

I've tried this with a bunch of files now and its failing with every single one of them.
The top status bar which shows complete says 'Copying Merged.html'

Bottom now says 'Overall status: 83.3% completed'

I've left it overnight even and no change.

That's interesting. This is actually the end phase of the process where it tries to copy the merged file, stored in a temporary location, to the final destination.

• Does the destination file already exist? Normally, it should delete that file first, but we better check everything...
  
• Could you check that, during the merging process, the following file is present:
  

  quote:

  ---

  XP: C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\Temp\Log Manager\Merged.html
  Vista: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\Log Manager\Merged.html

  ---

ok - went to 'Local Settings\temp' and tried it and it hung at the same spot and no 'Log Manager' folder appeared during the process.

I created the folder manually and the file appeared in it but again it hung at the same point.
The file in it was the merged file but it just stayed there and the output file never appeared.

Seems like its having some issues with the file system and making folders and files on it I'd say at a guess?
There should be no permission errors on the drive and i've never had any other programs have any problems  with it.

Yes, that looks like some sort of error with the files or the file system indeed. Quite odd, because the script was tested on XP and none of my testers reported problems with it.

I already found that the script doesn't check if the folder exists, as it uses the same folder for the encryption and decryption. A stupid mistake of me, yes, but because the same thing seems to happen when you create the folder yourself, the cause should lie somewhere else... unfortunately, I can't figure out where at the moment.

Well, since it hangs on the last step, I think you can try to copy the temporary file manually to your destination. My apologies for all this trouble, nila. Life of a script developer can be tough.

Hi, I just dropped by to say I have the exact same problem as nila. I tried out some of the workarounds and it was helpful. This script would have been perfect if it doesn't hang at 83.3%. Still, using the workarounds, it's still very useful. Thanks for the script!

Cheers.

I found out another thing: in the merged HTML file, any of the non-English characters such as &#971; and &#1171; don't appear correctly - instead it's just weird boxes or ??? in their places.

Edit: Ok those characters don't appear properly in this thread as well, but you get what I mean.

Small bug:  In the English language file there is still a dutch (?) phrase in there for the script menu.  "Logboeken samenvoegen" is included instead of "Merge Logs"

This can be easily fixed by editing English.xml, found in the "Languages" folder.

Also, the file doesn't appear to download as a PLSC, but it instead gets converted into a zip.

Maybe add it to the scripts database?

Hooray for old threads. Anyway, after having sorted my logs by month for ages, I am now converting them all to per-contact sorting. As you know, when you sort by month, the log files are all saved according to the e-mail of the contact, and when sorting by contact, the files are named according to month and year. With 200+ contacts and logs going back to 2006 (also got the old, pre-MP!L logs, more on that later), this is still a lengthy process, even using your merger. My suggestion/request/question is, would it be possible to make an automated "sort by month -> sort by e-mail" converter? If there is one already available, could someone point me at the right direction?

Also, I have tons of old log files (before MP!L was released, Plus! logged in .txt). Any chance those can be merged with the new Live logs?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Vilkku
Also, I have tons of old log files (before MP!L was released, Plus! logged in .txt). Any chance those can be merged with the new Live logs?

---

code:

---

August 2008
   - someone@hotmail.com
   - somebody@hotmail.com
July 2008
   - somebody@hotmail.com

---

code:

---

someone@hotmail.com
   - August 2008
   - July 2008
somebody@hotmail.com
   - July 2008

---

I understand the limitations of the script, it was mainly a general question/suggestion

is there a script for merging text log files?

quote:

---

Originally posted by CVonV
is there a script for merging text log files?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by CVonV
is there a script for merging text log files?

---

Anyone know if exist a similiar script or other software to merge log files...

Because this script doesn't work

I tried with

Windows XP Professional SP2
Windows Live Messenger 8.5
Messenger Plus! 4.70

And also with

Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Live Messenger 9
Messenger Plus! 4.79

Doesn't matter the process dont finish


See the attached image

If it did what it was supposed to do it would be great, however it appears to be a malicious script as it destroys the contents of the chat logs leaving an empty merged file in ALL cases. BE WARNED!

quote:

---

Originally posted by richard20260
If it did what it was supposed to do it would be great, however it appears to be a malicious script as it destroys the contents of the chat logs leaving an empty merged file in ALL cases. BE WARNED!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by richard20260
If it did what it was supposed to do it would be great, however it appears to be a malicious script as it destroys the contents of the chat logs leaving an empty merged file in ALL cases. BE WARNED!

---

Hi there

I can't seem to get this to work. (sorry i'm not very good with computers) I have downloaded the script and it has been imported to MSN live.  What do I need to do from here?

quote:

---

You have to be kidding me. Malicious... wow you got it all wrong buddy!

---

quote:

---

lol, OORRRRRR you did something wrong (or it's not compatible, keep in mind the script is over a year and a while old )

---

Maaaaattttiiiiiiiiiii

Where are you? The merge feature gets stuck at 66.7% .

Alright, that's it. Enough about this. If you want me to help you, then you first will have to help me!

I'm planning to recreate Log Manager as a Visual C++ or C# application, which gives me the ability to work in multiple threads and integrate some kind of scheduling feature. The only problem: I have absolutely no experience with programming for the Windows environment in .NET languages. So basically, I need someone to teach me!

My most important questions in this project are as followed:

• I need some way to keep track of the progress while "Log Viewer.exe" executes the command-line encryption process. Messenger Plus! Live seems to be able to detect this quite accurately while encrypting a log file to display its contents afterwards, so I need some way to get the same result.
  
• I want to make the user interface share some elements of Windows Live Messenger 2009. I already wrote some code to get the wavy header background in the window using GDI+ (with doubled buffering drawing), but I think there has to be some better way to make custom GUIs.

When I try to merge my PLE files, they come out in a big paragraph of text, and it looks to be only 2 months that actually do merge out of all of them.  Opening the resulting .html file shows

T h i s  i s  a n  e x a m p l e

rather than anything in HTML.  It's like the decrypting doesn't work.  ANd I can use other scripts to decrypt it myself, but this program doesn't recognize plain text to merge it.

How did the rest of the people who posted here get it to work?  I realize it was some time ago, but the logs aren't new either.

First of all, this project is sort of discontinued. I'm not planning any updates in the near future. The main reason is that the way the script interacts with the Log Viewer executable is still unreliable and there's no easy way to make this better with a Plus! script.

I just tried to do a merge process and it still works more or less. I managed to merge three encrypted log files into one log file. It's not completely broken yet.

However, it is very possible that only two months are merged in the case that the script thinks that Log Viewer is done decrypting while it's not. This detection is done using a timer which checks the last modified time on the decrypted file to determine whether Log Viewer is still working on it or whether it's finished. If Log Viewer hasn't changed the file in a certain time interval, the script thinks that it's done and continues with the next file.

The only reliable way to detect this is by receiving the exit code from the Log Viewer process itself. However, this is not possible in a Plus! script as such asynchronous monitoring is not supported. That's why I started porting the script to C# where such functionality is available.

I'll try to find some time to polish that C# project and release it. It's just that I don't have much time...

js code:

---

this.TempFolder = PathAppend(GetTempPath(), "Log Manager");

---

js code:

---

this.TempFolder = PathAppend(GetTempPath(), "Log Manager");
>>>if(!IsFolder(this.TempFolder)) CreateFolder(this.TempFolder);<<<

---

Thanks for the reply and update!

I just tried a merge of 3 months and it looks like there are 2 problems.  1.  It only used the first month.  2.  Something happens during the merge (doesn't happen with decrypt alone) to the first line, and there is no HTML formatting.  It shows in the examples below

Here's an example of the original PLE log:

code:

---

.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Session Start: Wednesday, March 12, 2008                           |
| Participants:                                                      |
|    B- ALL ABOOOORT!   *toot toot* (email1@hotmail.com)             |
|    ...e not to sell your perfumed secrets (email2@hotmail.com)     |
.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
[04:25:36 PM] I promise no: morning
[04:25:56 PM] B- ALL ABOOO: morning
[04:25:59 PM] B- ALL ABOOO: literally
[04:26:22 PM] I promise no: how u doin?
[04:26:47 PM] B- ALL ABOOO: i dunno i just woke up after like 13
              hours
[04:26:55 PM] I promise no: i just woke up too!

---

code:

---

.---------------.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Session Start: Wednesday, March 12, 2008                           |
| Participants:                                                      |
|    B- ALL ABOOOORT!   *toot toot* (email1@hotmail.com)             |
|    ...e not to sell your perfumed secrets (email2@hotmail.com)     |
.--------------------------------------------------------------------.
[04:25:36 PM] I promise no: morning
[04:25:56 PM] B- ALL ABOOO: morning
[04:25:59 PM] B- ALL ABOOO: literally
[04:26:22 PM] I promise no: how u doin?
[04:26:47 PM] B- ALL ABOOO: i dunno i just woke up after like 13
              hours
[04:26:55 PM] I promise no: i just woke up too!

---

code:

---

. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (continues)
|  S e s s i o n  S t a r t  (header continues)
[ 0 4 : 2 5 : 3 6  P M ]   I  p r o m i s e  n o :  m o r n i n g  : )

---

I see, you're working with log files in text format. This script only works with HTML formatted log files (encrypted or decrypted). Encrypting and decrypting will work just fine but merging works with the actual log contents and needs those contents to be HTML.

The problem is caused by the script seeing a PLE file and assuming that the content is HTML. It doesn't check whether the decrypted content is valid HTML. I understand that this should actually be checked by the script, I never actually tested it with text log files. I don't see why anyone would still want to use text logs when the HTML logs are so much better though.

(Those "invisible characters" are actually null characters as the script writes as Unicode. However since there's no byte flag or content type specified, Notepad and WordPad will open it as ANSI and show those null characters as spaces.)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Matti
I don't see why anyone would still want to use text logs when the HTML logs are so much better though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by JimmyJazz
Is there anything that can transform them to even basic HTML logs?

---

Well I guess my best bet then is to find a program to combine text files in a chosen order, so I can at least have them streamlined into 30 files rather than 700!

Thanks for the advice, both of you.

Sorry for the trouble, but I've been having MSN Logging problems for years (multiple logs on multiple accounts as well as different formatting). If you can reply to my query it would be greatly appreciated.

Whenever I try to merge two encrypted logs together (with an unencrypted output), let's say 'email@hotmail.com.ple' and 'email@hotmail.com.ple (2)' I get an error message either at 50% or 66.7% that says:

   The process failed because an error occured.

   Error: Error while reading temporary file.
   Paramaters: C:Users\Chase\AppData\Local\Temp\Log
   Manager\email@hotmail.com.tmp

   Please try again.

I don't really know anything about scripting or coding but i tried creating a folder in Temp called Log Manager and that didn't work. Any suggestions?



Also, regarding the editing of the _mergeProcess.js script, where would one find this file? I can't seem to find it.

Thanks for your time.

As stated in a previous post, this project is discontinued. I'll try to help you with your problem, although I can't guarantee that it will be solved.

First of all, what are the exact names of those files? Are the names in the format:

code:

---

email@hotmail.com.ple
email@hotmail.com (2).ple

---

code:

---

email@hotmail.com.ple
email@hotmail.com.ple (2)

---

code:

---

C:\Program Files\Yuna Software\Messenger Plus!\WLM-Scripts\Log Manager

---