How to view console messages whilst remaining in Modern UI 😎

[takbb]

One of the comments often made about using the Modern UI is the lack of access to the Console Log messages. Much as I now like using Modern UI, it is an issue I also have with it. I don’t often need to view those messages but when I do… I have to resort to switching to Classic UI.

Today I thought there has to be a way…

So… I dug around some old (pre-modern UI) forum messages relating to find anything I could on console logging, and I present here a method for …

(drum roll!)

Viewing the current console messages whilst remaining in Modern UI

1. Switch on “per workflow log messages”

Head to the preferences and select “Enable per workflow logs”

The effect of this is that console messages for your workflow are now directed to the knime.log file in the current workflow folder.

2. View the knime.log file from the workflow

[EDIT: if you are short of time, skip to the end for a new Console Log Viewer component]

You should be able to do this by configuring a File Reader to read the knime.log file in the current workflow folder. Oddly this didn’t work when I tried it, as it didn’t correctly find the workflow’s folder!

Hmmm… odd…

Oh well. I have a component that can do that…

Open File or Folder – takbb

Drop this on your workflow on your workflow canvas, and configure it as follows:

Execute it and it will open the console log in an editor.

Alternatively, use it to pass the path of the log file to a File Reader.
Configure it as follows:

Execute it, then link it to a File Reader and configure the File Reader like this:

Then you can execute the File Reader to view the latest console log messages.

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EDIT: For convenience, I’ve packaged the above into the Console Log Viewer component:

Console Log Viewer – takbb

[HaveF]

Haha, although a bit weird (since logs are usually emitted in streaming mode, we have to rerun when something changed), it’s still an interesting solution

@takbb you always find something unexpected

[takbb]

I thought I’d update this thread as I believe lack of console view remains as one of the blockers to Modern UI adoption by some.

My new preferred solution to the viewing of Console in Modern UI actually has advantages, imho, over the console window in Classic UI, and it is relatively simple, although depending on your OS you may require a third party tool to make it simple. It also works best if you have dual monitors so the console is on the other monitor.

In Unix (sorry, showing my age )… Linux! you have the tail command to continually show the latest lines added to the end of a text file.

In Windows you can install a third party tool (my choice is the free version of “BareTail” which has a very small footprint).

In Modern UI, open the menu item “Show KNIME log in File Explorer”

then drop the knime.log file onto BareTail or otherwise open it with your “Tail” utility of choice. Make sure tail is set to “follow tail” (the -f switch in linux if my memory serves).

You could, if you wish, set up a shortcut on your desktop to open the logfile in “tail”.

The advantage over the classic console viewer is that you get to see the date/timestamps of the log entries, and additionally viewing the console also isn’t consuming any of KNIME’s processing time.

[BenjaminMoser]

Hey @takbb ,

what is it specifically that you are getting from the conole / log file that you are missing from the Modern UI “Monitor” panel?

We are trying to move away from showing the log to the user by default because it is not approachable, flexible, extensible. (The log will always be there, though).

Best,
Ben

PS: encouraging to hear for me that you rather find a workaround to view log messages in Modern UI than just switch back to classic

[takbb]

Hi @BenjaminMoser, good though Node monitor is, the logfile allows me to see things that I cannot get from it.

For example, I can log messages using java snippet/java edit variable. I can also see when an unexpected error occurs (sadly KNIME 5.4 has had some glitches with table viewing, and it’s been useful to see when these have occurred)

@BenjaminMoser

PS: encouraging to hear for me that you rather find a workaround to view log messages in Modern UI than just switch back to classic

… yes I work almost entirely in Modern UI these days. There are only a small number of reasons now that I switch back to classic.

One is to be able to Ctrl+F to find a node.

On a large workflow, it can be difficult to remember where a particular node is and search for a node’s annotation is a must before I can fully endorse MUI.

The second aspect of MUI which for me continues to fall a little short is table viewing performance. If processing in a loop, for example, the modern table viewers (and the bottom data panel) cannot keep up with the display of data; by the time they’ve got to the point of loading the data, the loop has moved on to the next iteration and so they continually show a “nothing to display” message, whereas the classic-style tables can populate far more quickly and so you get a brief display of current data.

Consequently I sometimes return to Classic for execution of a workflow, but more commonly I now drop Interactive Table (Legacy) viewers to provide that kind of “warm feeling” of progress (i.e. seeing the data flashing by )

Mostly I’m dissuaded from the switch back to CUI because I often have several workflows open at the same time and having to close them all is inconvenient.

[BenjaminMoser]

Thanks - we are always very hungry for exactly this kind of feedback

@takbb

One is to be able to Ctrl+F to find a node.

Searching in workflows is on our roadmap, this might be part of the summer release if things go exceptionally well

Regarding table viewing performance: I suppose there is the tradeoff between performance and sophistication / usefulness. Of course we are invested in the table view being performant and have already done some substantial improvements there the last couple of releases.

Best,
Ben

[takbb]

The table performance and efficiency is probably the biggest deal for me and I suspect a lot of people who are still hanging on to CUI.

KNIME’s reason to be is as a data/analytics platform and being able to efficiently view data is important. Yes there certainly are some recent improvements, such as “popping out” large text for viewing which is great, but I still work a lot more efficiently using a classic UI table output. I use them less because it is a pain dropping Interactive Table (Legacy) nodes everywhere, but I do still turn to them in the early stages of analysing data that I am unfamiliar with.

I hope the new tables continue to improve, and I’ve given my views previously (links at the bottom), and of course we’ve gone off topic from this thread but I’ll just throw this one question out:

Where do I go in KNIME to see if my data contains any “unexpected” space padding?

hint:

The classic view isn’t perfect (I cannot see right-padding for example), and I remain hopeful that this is an area where Modern UI tables will improve to be able to see space padding (left, right and centre) such as by turning on some form of “character marker” like you can in many editors (and so be able to distinguish tabs, other “whitespace and invisible/unprintable characters”)

btw, looking forward to the Summer release! Keep up the good work!

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Some of my previous feedback on MUI tables:

Table View node - allow it to be set to "Compact Rows" mode as the environment default

In KNIME AP 5.1, the absence of the Classic UI’s ability to view the output data ports in pop up windows almost certainly means that I will now find myself placing the Table View nodes at various points in order to be able to see the output from different nodes at the same time. When I first started using KNIME, just two and a half years ago, the ease of viewing data from multiple nodes concurrently was one of its stand-out features. When I was using Alteryx, for the couple of years prior, I ha…

Roadmap for the Table View in Modern UI

I’ve generally held back on going down the rabbit hole of comparing Modern UI with Classic, but I would be interested to know what the future direction of the Data Table presentation is. I made reference to a number of shortcomings of Modern UI’s data table presentation back in September last year, so apologies that I am repeating here some of what I said then, but I feel it is important. With the various improvements that have been made to Modern UI, I enjoy using it, and mostly will do so …

Wrap Column names in V5

I agree @sw1336. The ability to visually inspect data quickly is what makes (made!) KNIME exceptional compared with other data/analytics tools I’ve used As @DanielBog says, there are lots of “important” features that different people would raise as priorities but to me there are certain “must haves” with regard to data viewing: Being able to efficiently visually inspect the data, which includes being able to read column names in full without much manual effort. Being able to view the ac…

[BenjaminMoser]

Thanks, the whitespace issue is already known and will be addressed (UIEXT-1508). Forwarding your feedback on the table view.