Mylog: A Visualization For Mylar Log Data

Software systems use text based log files for many different applications, such as monitoring events, or in the case of a research setting, capturing the usage data from a user study. The downfall with these text based log files is that even if they are well structured (using XML or the similar), they are difficult to read and even more difficult to get meaningful information from. To help extract information, scripts are normally written, but this can be a difficult task. Also, the output from these scripts is normally text based and therefore they can only continue provide limited information. Mylog solves these problems by visualizing log data and presenting it to the users graphically. Mylog reduces the time to analyze the log files since it produces instant feedback on parameter choices and the user is able to have an increased confidence that the visualization returned the information that they were looking for. Also, Mylog allows further inspection after the data in question has been found.