How to Format a Log Quickly

Logging can be done smoothly. Usually, it is a case of knowing a little advanced Find and Replace. To do this, you will need:

• A client that supports logging (Such as SimpleMU or BeipMU)
• A text editor that supports advanced searches ([http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download Notepad++[ if you're using Windows, native editor if using other OS's)

If you have both of these things, you can edit a log for most MUs within minutes.

Using Find and Replace

To clean a log in this fashion, you will need to tinker with a few of Find and Replace's more advanced features. Don't worry, though. Just copy and paste what you see in the table below. The table shows you what to search for. When doing this in Notepad++, be sure that (regular expressions: screenshot) is selected. Other native editors should be fine out of the box.

To find...	Place this into Search	Place this into Replace
Pages	^From afar\, (.*?)$ ^[A-Za-z\- (),]+ pages\: (.*?)$ ^Long distance to (.*?)\: (.*?)$ ^You paged (.*?) with \'(.*?)\'$ ^From afar\, to \((.*?)\)\: (.*?)$	Put nothing into Replace (that is, leave it blank)
Channel Chatter		Put noting into Replace (that is, leave it blank)
OOC Chatter		Put noting into Replace (that is, leave it blank)
Add an additional line between paragraphs	\n	\n\n
Remove spacing before poses	Type "space" 9 times	Put nothing into Replace (that is, leave it blank)