Is it possible to indent or fold the lines?

[bobjiang82]

Not sure if it is available using a filter in the current version or through plugins.
If yes, how?
If no, could you consider adding this feature?
Thanks.

[DavidAnson]

This is not something a filter could do, but a plug-in could. There’s more information about writing plug-ins here: https://dlaa.me/blog/tag/TextAnalysisTool

[paulelong]

@DavidAnson, I have a similar idea, but I'm not sure how a plug-in would help. I would like to fold lines that are similar, integrated into the rules you create. The problem I have is that I filter a line, and there are many matches in a row that are mostly alike. This makes our logs difficult to read the log, though I don't want to filter the line out. So it would be useful to fold them into one line, perhaps based on percentage of likeness, and include an indication of how many similar lines were folded together. The implementation would be a checkbox in the rule that says "fold lines". Then it would compare the lines for characters at the same offset position that are same, and if it's above the % threshold it collapses them into one line.

I would consider contributing to TextAnalysisTool. I was thrilled to see it available externally after leaving Microsoft as I used it many years ago. It is the only tool I can find that does what I need and deals with huge text logs that our products at Axon create. Is there a source code repository I can contribute to?

Thanks, Paul

[DavidAnson]

Sorry, Paul, your scenario is interesting but the source code to the tool itself is only available internally. I’m not sure I completely understand the specifics of your scenario, but it still seems like it might be achievable in a plug-in, though maybe that plug-in would need to have an idea of the kind of filters you usually apply?

[paulelong]

Could the plug-in be toggled off/on easily? Or would I have to reload the file each time?

[DavidAnson]

Plug-ins are initialized when the application is run and exist for the life of it. However, your plug-in should be able to be smart enough not to apply changes multiple times or to documents that do not need it.

[paulelong]

I would like to be able to toggle the result, and also have the result based on the currently displayed events. So if after applying filters the lines in question are consecutive and adjacent, they would be collapsed. But, I think a plug-in only modifies the data once when it's read in. Am I understanding that correctly?

[DavidAnson]

Your understanding is correct.