[tor-bugs] #2093 [Vidalia]: Handle debug-level Tor log severity efficiently

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#2093: Handle debug-level Tor log severity efficiently
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 Reporter:  arma     |       Owner:     
     Type:  defect   |      Status:  new
 Priority:  major    |   Milestone:     
Component:  Vidalia  |     Version:     
 Keywords:           |      Parent:     
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Comment(by chiiph):

 Replying to [ticket:2093 arma]:
 > Configure your Vidalia to listen to debug-level Tor logs, leave the
 message window open, and then do something active with your Tor. Vidalia
 will go nuts trying to keep up with displaying all the lines, resizing
 them, and whatever else it's trying to do. It's too inefficient handling
 each new line, and trying to do thousands of them at once just overwhelms
 it.
 >
 > Why? What can we do to fix or mitigate? If we can't fix, maybe we should
 make it more discouraged to click the 'debug' button?

 True, we can test with a QTextEdit, but if it is too much text it won't be
 good either, since it'd be more a drawing problem than a processing one.
 I had experience this issue with QTextEdits now that I think about it.

 This is why I'd like to see Vidalia with a GUI in which you have 2 modes:
 Standard and Advanced. In the Standard there's a really basic use of Tor,
 mostly to use as a client. And in the Advanced mode, you have all the
 detail configuration and the possibility to see debug messages. This way,
 a user has to enable the Advanced mode, and then enable the debug logging
 part.

 >
 > While I'm at it, why does Vidalia set up its own log files from the
 message window, when it could configure Tor so Tor does the logging?

 I don't know what was the original idea, but I agree Vidalia should set up
 its own log files for logs about Vidalia itself, and not Tor.

 The best way to handle this that I can think of is to disable debug
 message at all in Vidalia, since Tor can log to a file by its own, and
 Vidalia's debug messages can go to a different file.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/2093#comment:1>
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