captains-log-nw

The lightweight logger from SailsJS now made ready for NW. Optional support for colorized output, custom prefixes and log levels (using npm's logging conventions).

Installation

$ npm install captains-log-nw

Usage

var log = require('captains-log-nw')();
log('hi');

See also Console API.

Logging at a particular level

By default, if you just call log(), captains-log-nw will write your log output at the "debug" log level. You can achieve the same effect by writing log.debug().

IMPORTANT NOTE: npm calls this level log.http(), but we call it debug. If you use log(), the logger sees this as a call to log.debug())

Here are all of the log-level-specific methods which are available in captains-log-nw out of the box:

var log = require('captains-log-nw')({
  level: 'silly'
});

log.silly();
log.verbose();
log.info();
log.blank(); // will output white text on a white background.
log.debug();
log.warn();
log.error();
log.crit(); // same as error, but can be configured to be different in style.

// using other features from console, which will only be applied in silly log level
// (and have the same colors applied)
log.silly.groupCollapsed("Many silly level log messages.");
log.silly();
log.silly.groupEnd();

Setting level: 'silent' will disable all logging, while setting level: 'silly' will enable all levels of logging. For more details information, see SailsJS logging.

Configuration

For node-webkit, it's easiest if the globalizeAs option is used to expose the logger throughout the application.

var CaptainsLog = require('captains-log-nw');

var log = new CaptainsLog({
  level: 'debug',
  globalizeAs: 'log',     // make it available globally, without using require()
  console: console,       // passing in the console from the Window object (Browser context)
                          // makes the logs visible in the Developer Tools.
  prefixTheme: 'aligned', // Use a different prefix for string logs.
  colors: false           // disable colors altogether.
});

It's possible to set the prefixes manually as well as changing the color of the output for specific levels.

var CaptainsLog = require('captains-log-nw');

var log = new CaptainsLog({
  level: 'verbose',
  prefixes: {
    silly   : 'silly  : ',
    verbose : 'verbose: ',
    info    : 'info   : ',
    blank   : '',
    debug   : '',
    warn    : '',
    error   : '',
    crit    : ''
  },
  prefixTheme: 'moderate', // will be ignored, since prefixes are set manually.
  colors: {
    // NW's console allows for css styling for log output
    crit: 'color: red; font-weight: 600; font-size: 18px; text-transform: uppercase'
  }
});

Configuring a custom logger

Not Tested

To use a different library, overrides.custom must already be instantiated and ready to go with (at minimum) an n-ary .debug() method.

Implementing the simplest possible override

var log = require('captains-log-nw')({ custom: customLogger });

log('hello', 'world');
// yields => "Hello world"

This assumes customLogger works as follows:

customLogger.debug()
customLogger.debug('blah')
customLogger.debug('blah', 'foo')
customLogger.debug('blah', 'foo', {bar: 'baz'})
customLogger.debug('blah', 'foo', {bar: 'baz'}, ['a', 3], 2, false);
// etc.

For example:

var customLogger = console.log.bind(console);

Using Winston

Formerly, this module encapsulated winston, a popular logger by @indexzero and the gals/guys over at Nodejitsu. Recently, we made Winston optional to make captains-log as lightweight as possible and reduce the number of npm installs and require()s necessary for its usage in other modules.

But Winston is awesome! And it's a great fit for many apps, giving you granular control over how log output is handled, including sending emails, logging to multiple transports, and other production-time concerns.

To use boot up a captains-log that writes to Winston, do the following:

var log = require('captains-log-nw')({
  custom: new (require('winston').Logger)({
    levels     : ...,
    transports : ...
  })
});

License

MIT