How to colorize plain text files in browser based on multiple regular expressions?

Question

I do often have to look at long plain text log file in browser and I find hard to spot the error message in that amount of text.

Most error messages are easily identifiable using regular expressions. I have being using this trick to highlight important text in iTerm2 for years.

Now the interesting challenge is how to bring the same feature to the browser?

I mention that I need to be able enable this feature per domain as it may have undersirable side effects on others.

A cross browser solution would be ideal but I am ready to switch browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox).

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 02 '18 at 10:53

I know of GreaseMonkey for Firefox which allows you to inject javascript into a webpage. I'm not familiar with who you create scripts to use with it but perhaps you could match the messages using regex. Not sure how you'll highlight a plain text file using it though.

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 02 '18 at 10:06

-1

You can easily develop an Extension which will inject a CSS file on whichever webpage you want. Now, in this CSS file you will need a pseudo selector(Do all the text elements have same class or other attribute?). You need to figure this out yourself. Once you have hold of all these elements you can add a CSS rule to change their color to whatever you like.

answered Aug 02 '18 at 10:06

WarPro

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"look at long **plain text** log file" – shreyasminocha Aug 02 '18 at 10:45
How do you think the **plain text** file will get loaded? – WarPro Aug 02 '18 at 11:08
Also, they don't wish to change the colour of certain elements. They wish to match specific lines/strings within the `
```
` using a regular expression and highlight those strings. A CSS-only solution is not possible.
```
– shreyasminocha Aug 02 '18 at 11:16

How to colorize plain text files in browser based on multiple regular expressions?

2 Answers2