[rfc][icedtea-web] refactored logging

[Jiri Vanek]

On 09/11/2013 10:05 PM, Omair Majid wrote:
> On 09/11/2013 12:29 PM, Pavel Tisnovsky wrote:
>>> Can you describe the motivation for logging into syslog? Is this
>>> somethings lots of other user programs do?
>>
>> The main problem with the current solution is that most users don't know
>> how to enable debug output
>
> The single place to configure (enable) logging for both javaws and
> plugin is itweb-settings, no? Should we be fixing that to make things
> more obvious?

I think this is correct. The custom logging to file in ~/.../log/ can be enabled here.
However this logger was practically unused.

I have reused it, and fork more message into it  so it become much more usefull.

For system log, I would choose different approach. I would let it enabled by default, and allow to 
disable it in itw-settings - I will add this as separate patch once refactroing is inside.
>
>> and also how to run ITW (+browser) from the console
>> to see error output. Syslog might be better and I think it's now the standard
>> way how applications might log its messages.
>
> I don't know if I have seen anything other than system applications (or
> non-interactive) applications use syslog. What other applications that
> you can interact with on the command line do this?
>
> At least as far as programs are concerned, my first instinct is to look
> at --help (or -help or -h) for some sort of --verbose or -v or --debug
> flag and use that. Maybe I have been doing it wrong, but I can't
No, you are doing it right. But you are an developer. And good one. I As pavel mentioned - many 
users can not find even the terminal...

> remember looking at the syslog for any interactive programs, ever.

Well, I'm checking them quite soon ifI tryu to find any debug outputs...

>
> For the browser plugin, I guess syslog makes a little bit more sense for
> standard logging messages. I am not sure the actual debug messages from
> the plugin (as in ~/.icedtea/logs/) are appropriate - maybe it will be
> too much noise?

~/.config/icedtea-web/log since 1.5 O:)
>
> Thanks,
> Omair
>