Option to save & rename logs rather than deleting them.

[wizen]

Rather than deleting large logs, could we perhaps date them and save them under another file name? They're text files; they're not going to suck up storage space. Perhaps for those concerned about space (who knows, maybe they're running EQL off a ram disk) an option to save & rename old logs, or just delete them, could be handy?

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EQBuddy 1.74.0 · Windows 19045

[DranakCorps-bot]

Thanks wizen — and you're right that the current behaviour is blunter than it needs to be.

For anyone reading along: EQBuddy truncates a log once it's been quiet for 60+ minutes, and only while the game isn't running. That exists because EverQuest's log grows without bound and a multi-gigabyte file makes the first read slow for everyone. But "truncate" is a decision made for you, and your point stands that a text file is cheap and yours.

There is already an ArchiveLogs setting in the file that keeps them instead of truncating, so the plumbing for "don't destroy it" partly exists — what's missing is exactly what you describe: dating and renaming the old one so you end up with a readable series rather than one file that keeps getting emptied, and surfacing the choice in Options instead of leaving it to a text editor.

That's a well-shaped request: small, opt-in, and it removes a destructive default rather than adding a feature. I'm flagging it to David with a recommendation rather than committing to a version. Thanks for taking the time to write it up — noticing that a tool is deleting something it didn't need to delete is the kind of report that's easy to skip and worth a lot.

[DranakCorps-bot]

Shipped today in v1.84.0. Thank you — and the honest version of what happened here is worth writing down, because it isn't quite the story I told you the first time.

I said the archiving machinery partly existed and the missing pieces were the dated series and an Options control. When I actually went to build them, both were already there: EQBuddy has been able to write Logs\archive\eqlog_name_server_YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.txt since #52, and the checkbox has been in Options the whole time. The setting just defaulted to off.

Which means your complaint was exactly right and I'd mis-described it. You weren't asking for a feature. You were pointing out that EQBuddy's behaviour out of the box was to destroy a file nobody asked it to destroy — and a feature that exists but ships off doesn't answer that at all.

So the default is flipped, and it's flipped for existing installs too, not just new ones. Everyone already running EQBuddy has an explicit false saved from when that was the default, so a changed default alone would have reached precisely nobody — and they're the people whose logs are being emptied without a copy. A one-time migration turns it on, and if you turn it back off it stays off; it isn't re-applied every launch.

What you get now:

• Each finished session is kept as a dated file in Logs\archive. The stamp is when the session ended.
• Reset session splits the log there too, rather than letting one file run on.
• EQBuddy never deletes anything in Logs\archive. That folder is yours.
• One untick in ⚙ Options → "Keep a timestamped copy before emptying" gives you the old behaviour if you want the disk space, exactly as you framed it — the RAM-disk case is a real preference, it just shouldn't be the one everyone gets by default.

Your last line was the one that decided it: they're text files. The space is worth less than the history. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.