This is a little application that displays logfiles on your desktop. Really useful if you have to monitor servers or you just want to keep an eye on what's going on on your machine. In its standard configuration it displays entries from any number of logfiles interleaved in a single window. Have a look at some screenshots. MkConsole is smart enough to close and reopen files every now and then to deal with rotating files and it transparently works around stale NFS handles which often exist after your Mac wakes up from sleep and tries to read from a logfile mounted via NFS. If you don't mind hacking the user defaults (rather than using the preferences panel) you can also configure multiple windows with multiple logfiles each.

If you have any questions or contributions please contact me at erik@doernenburg.com.

Version 1.14 released. No functional changes but MkConsole is now built as a 64-bit application.

Version 1.11 released. No functional changes but MkConsoleElement now displays an entry in the status area of the menu bar, which gives access to the preferences and allows to quit the element; no more AppleScripts for that. The source code, including all historical versions, is now in a new SVN repository.

Version 1.10, bringing a few improvements. Disconnected screens no longer leave logfile windows invisible, but instead such windows will be moved to a visible part of the remaining screen(s). In case the network configuration changes (i.e. via selecting a different location), logfiles are being reopened. Finally, there's a new default for suppressing alert windows which pop up in case logfiles couldn't be opened (which might happen after network disconnects).

A new release with new features. Both MkConsole and MkConsoleElement are now Universal Binaries, which should solve all problems when running them on Intel Macs.

Piotr has made a Polish version of MkConsole available on his File Sharing Page. Mulle Kybernetik has not been involved in this localisation, please send all questions regarding this directly to Piotr.

I missed the anniversary of the previous release by a few days but nonetheless, here it is: version 1.8 of MkConsole. The only new feature in this release is an automatic reopening of logfiles when the computer wakes up from sleep mode. This should solve issues with NFS-mounted logfiles.

Version 1.7 adds a setting to make the console window 'sticky' so that it remains on the desktop when using Expose. For new downloads this is enabled by default. Users of previous versions must enable this feature on the preferences panel.

Version 1.6 introduces a 'UIElement' version of MkConsole which allows you to run MkConsole without showing up in the dock or the applications list. If you choose to use the element you can still use the app to change preferences.

Version 1.5b2 makes it to Version Tracker and other sites and thus becomes the 'official' 1.5 release. New features improved window/desktop interaction and cleverer algorithm to check whether files must be re-read.

Version 1.4 features further improvements to the preferences. When the preferences panel is open the log window acquires a title bar and a resize corner so that its position and size can be set interactively. (Thanks to Znek for the code.) You can now also set the window background colour. Finally, a long promised feature, reopening of logfiles, now works properly.

We now have some screenshots. Thanks to Gecko at Nulldesign for the backdrops.

Version 1.3 is out. New in this release is an extended preferences panel that allows setting of the font. Also fixes all known bugs.

The version first published yesterday was accidentally built from a previous version of the source code. And that broke the preference panel. This was fixed a few hours later and everything should work now.

First public release of the application. After an extended beta phase, which simply didn't have a preferences panel, it is clear that this app works and might be useful to more people.

Why is it important that a system utility such as MkConsole is Open Source Software? Console applications, among others, have access to potentially sensitive information (because log files can contain sensitive information) and only with Open Source Software you can verify how this information is processed. With closed source applications you cannot read the source code and, hence, have to trust that they do what they say they do.

Copyright © 2002 - 2019 by Mulle Kybernetik. All rights reserved.

Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation, and that credit is given to Mulle Kybernetik in all documents and publicity pertaining to direct or indirect use of this code or its derivatives.

THIS IS EXPERIMENTAL SOFTWARE AND IT IS KNOWN TO HAVE BUGS, SOME OF WHICH MAY HAVE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER ALLOWS FREE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IN ITS "AS IS" CONDITION. THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY OF ANY KIND FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY FROM THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE OR OF ANY DERIVATIVE WORK.