Use the Trace Window in conjunction with the Zim stderr document. When stderr is to be the output, a message containing the debugging information is sent to the Trace Window. The debugging information is accumulated, displayed, and/or written to a log file depending on the current settings.
Trace messages that are displayed on the screen are accumulated in a display buffer that contains up to 300 lines. You can use the scroll bars to scroll through the display buffer. When the buffer is full, additional lines are added and existing lines are deleted in a FIFO (first-in-first-out) manner.
When the Trace messages are directed to the Memory destination, they are accumulated in a dynamically allocated FIFO list of up to 64 Kb. This provides enough room for about 280 messages of 200 characters each.
The menu options in the Trace Window are as follows.
| Clear | Clears the Trace Window and removes all lines from the display buffer. |
| Save | Writes the contents of the display buffer to the current output file. |
| Task Id | Displays the task id of the application with the data. |
| Comment | Enables you to type a message that is sent to the Trace Window as if output to stderr. |
| Topmost | When checked, causes the Trace window to be displayed on top of all other windows. |
| Exit | Exits the Trace application. |
| To Screen | When this option is active, each Trace message received by the Trace Window is added to the display buffer and displayed on the screen. |
| To File | When this option is active, each Trace message received by the Trace Window is written to the current output file. |
| To Memory | When this option is active, each Trace message received by the Trace Window is added to a FIFO list in memory. As long as this option is active, Trace messages are not written to the output file or displayed on the screen. |
When the option is deactivated, all messages saved in the FIFO list are played back as if they had just been received and the FIFO list is discarded.
Notes:
This option is particularly useful for debugging time-dependant operations that must be executed at full speed without pausing to display or write Trace messages. Also, some operations are affected when the Trace Window displays a message. The only way to effectively monitor the execution of this type of operation is to save the Trace messages in memory and then display them when the operation is complete.
| Name | This option enables you to specify the current output file name. |
| Restart | This option indicates that the current output file should be restarted. If it is selected, then the next time a message is written to the output file, the current contents of the file are deleted. |
You can restart the output file at any time by selecting this option. You can also restart it by selecting the "Restart" option when a new output file name is specified.
Note: ZimTrace is available only from the graphical interface on Windows; it cannot be invoked from the command line in Windows, nor is it supported in UNIX in any format.