WoW Chatlog Colourizer Help

WoW Chatlog Colourizer 0.8.2

General Info

What is WoW Chatlog Colourizer?

World of Warcraft chat log files are not easy to read: they contain only plain text and large amounts of garbage. WoW Chatlog Colourizer is a small tool that can convert WoW chat logs into HTML documents (viewable in any web browser), adding WoW-like colour, fixing errors and removing unwanted info in the process, making the resulting file much more readable. Chat logs recorded with any English-language version of World of Warcraft since version 2.2 are supported.

All colours and filters can easily be customized to match your in-game settings.

You can also use WoW Chatlog Colourizer as a filter only, without adding colour, and save the results to a text file.

Note: WoW Chatlog Colourizer requires Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 or higher.

Keep in mind that Microsoft Internet Explorer may have problems opening very large files. Alternative browsers, such as Opera or Firefox, work fine.

How to save WoW chat logs

You can log your chat by using the /chatlog command in-game. If you want chat logging to always be active, used the included addon, "Chatlogger".

Chat is always recorded to the WoWChatLog.txt file in your World of Warcraft\Logs directory.

How to use the program

Open a chatlog file using either the File -> Open File command, or by clicking the 'Open' button. Click the 'Save' button if you want to change the output path (same as the input path by default), then click the 'Start' button.

By default, files are saved as HTML documents in 'Filter and Colourize' mode, and as text files in 'Filter Only' mode (see below).

The File menu

Open file

Click to select a World of Warcraft chatlog file you want to colourize.

Chatlog Info

When a valid chatlog file is open, clicking this will open a window containing information about the chatlog, including the amount of lines of each type it contains as well as some additional info, such as the number of login sessions, auctions won, honourable kills etc.

Open File When Finished

If checked, the colourized version will be automatically opened once the conversion's finished.

The Mode menu

WoW Chatlog Colourizer can operate in one of two modes:

Filter and Colourize

This is the default mode. When active, colours (Options -> Set Colours), and preferences (Options -> Preferences) can be changed. The chat log will be converted to HTML and saved as a .html file.

Filter Only

When this mode is active, only filters can be changed, and chat logs will not be converted into HTML but saved as plain text files instead. If you wish, you can colourize them later in 'Filter and Colourize' mode.

The Options menu

Set Filters

Here, you can choose what kind of information you want to keep in your chat log.

Chat Channels

Basic Channels: Guild, Officer, Party, Party Leader, Raid, Raid Leader, Raid Warning, Battleground and Battleground leader. Check to include.

Numbered Channels: General, Trade etc., as well as custom channels.

Direct Communication

Whispers, Says, Yells and emotes, both from/to other players and NPCs.

Note: because the chat log contains no information about the message other than the sender's name, it is not always possible to correctly determine whether the message originates from a player or an NPC. Names which follow the standard naming rules for players (12 characters, no spaces or non-letter characters) will be treated as players. As a result, some messages from NPCs will usually slip through even if only Player Messages are checked.

System

Various system messages, by default displayed in yellow in World of Warcraft.

Quest-related: all messages related to quests, such as 'Quest accepted', 'Quest completed' and 'You have already done this quest'.
Login/Logout: notifications displayed when your friends and guildies change their online status.
AFK/DND: messages displayed when you are flagged as Away From Keyboard or Do Not Disturb, and when you whisper players who are flagged as such.
Ready checks: messages displayed when you or your raid leader performs a ready check, and the check's results.
Instance messages: all messaged related to instances, such as 'You are now saved to XXX', 'Additional instances cannot be launched', and many more.
Party and Raid: messages related to your group or raid, for example 'XXX has invited you to join a group', 'YYY is now the group leader', etc.
Battleground queue: messages displayed when queued for a battleground.
Guild-related: messages such as 'XXX has joined the guild', 'YYY has promoted ZZZ to...', or 'The guild has been disbanded'.
Titles earned: notifications displayed when you earn a new title.
[Server] messages: [Server] notifications, such as server restart warnings etc.
FPS test: results of the taxi fps test.
Loot (yellow): Messages displayed when looting gold or receiving items, such as quest rewards etc. -- basically all loot-related notifications displayed in-game in yellow by default.
Auction House: messages displayed when selling or buying items in the AH, such as 'Your auction of XXX sold', 'You have been outbid' etc.
Friend/Ignore: messages displayed when adding players to your Friend or Ignore list.
/who Command: information about players displayed when using the '/who' command.
"Player Not Found" Errors: various errors displayed when the player in question doesn't exist or has gone offline.
New Area Discovery: messages displayed when you discover a new zone.
Trading: messages displayed when trading, or requesting to trade, with other players.
Duels: Duel-related messages, such as 'XXX has won', 'YYY has fled' etc.
Achievements: Achievement notifications. Keep in mind that recent versions of WoW don't include the player's name in the chat log, replacing it with '%s'. Chatlog Colourizer will replace '%s' with 'Unknown' when necessary.
/roll Command: rolls performed manually using the '/roll' command.
Alcohol Drinking: messages displayed when you, or the people around you, drink alcohol. Includes messages such as 'XXX is getting drunk', 'You feel sober again' etc.
Server Welcome Messages: messages from the WoW team displayed when you log a character into the game.
Miscellaneous: various other, often obscure, messages.

Other

Looting: messages displayed when looting items, either by you or by your group members.
Rolling: automatic rolling on items when you're in a group with other people.
Need/Greed/Disenchant: players' reaction to loot drops.
Item Crafting: messages displayed when you, or someone in your group, creates an item.

Experience: messages displayed when you gain experience.
Reputation: messages displayed when you gain reputation.
Honour: messages displayed when you gain honour.
BG Messages: messages displayed in battlegrounds.
Skill and Ability Gains: messages displayed when you learn a new ability or gain skill points.
Tradeskills: messages displayed when people around you (not necessarily in your group) craft items or perform other actions. These messages are, by default, not displayed in-game and can be very spammy, especially in large cities and capitals. Unchecked by default.
Unrecognized Messages: all messages that don't follow a recognizable pattern. Nearly all of them are custom player emotes and boss emotes and warnings.

Set Colours

Here you can change the colours that will be used in the colourized chat log. By default, they are set to match the World of Warcraft in-game colours. Click on a colour to bring up the colour selection dialogue.

Note: WoW chat logs don't contain any information about the quality of items. All drops will be assigned the same colour (white by default).

Preferences

Time Stamp: if checked, a time stamp will be included in the colourized chatlog. You can also choose the time stamp's precision:
- Milliseconds: MM/DD hh:mm:ss:ms
- Seconds: MM/DD hh:mm:ss
- Minutes: MM/DD hh:mm
- Date Only: MM/DD

Style Sheet:
- Internal: if this option is selected, a CSS style sheet will be included in the HTML document's <head> section. This will allow you to easily change colours and some other options manually if you wish. This is the default option.
- Inline: this option saves most styling information inside the HTML elements themselves, making them largely self-contained. This can be useful if you intend to copy parts of the log and paste them into another HTML document. However, the file will be much larger. Do not use this option unless you know that you need it.

Insert Square Brackets: check to insert square brackets around player and item names. This doesn't serve any purpose other than make the colourized log appear more like the 'real thing'.

Separator: check if you wish to insert a separator between login sessions. The separator can be a page-wide horizontal rule, or an empty line.

Font: here, you can change the font that you want the colourized chatlog to use. By default it is Arial, 14.25 points. You can choose any font available on your system.

'Auto' Mode

New in 0.8.2: you can run the application with the -auto parameter to enter a non-interactive mode. The log will be processed automatically using the current set of options (including the input and output paths, which are now saved between sessions). In this mode, existing files will be overwritten without warning.

Author

Contact Information

WoW Chatlog Colourizer was made by me - Fulthrix @ Arathor-EU ;-)

If you have any questions or suggestions, don't hesitate to contact me either in-game or by e-mail: fulthrix@gmail.com