# The Activity Log

The activity log is very useful for troubleshooting problems, and helps when developing plugins.

Utilities>Troubleshooting>Activity Log displays the last 500 lines of the activity log. By default, the activity log is shown in a floating window. This window can be docked using the commands in its top-left corner popup menu; see .

The complete log can be found in the `activity.log` file inside the jEdit settings directory, the path of which is shown inside the activity log window.

jEdit writes the following information to the activity log:

- Information about your Java implementation (version, operating system, architecture, etc).

- All error messages and runtime exceptions (most errors are shown in dialog boxes as well, but the activity log usually contains more detailed and technical information).

- All sorts of debugging information that can be helpful when tracking down bugs.

- Information about loaded plugins.

While jEdit is running, the log file on disk may not always accurately reflect what has been logged, due to buffering being done for performance reasons. To ensure the file on disk is up to date, invoke the Utilities>Troubleshooting>Update Activity Log on Disk command. The log file is also automatically updated on disk when jEdit exits.

The Settings button in the Activity Log window shows a dialog that lets you adjust the output colors, filter the messages by type, and lets you set the maximum number of lines to display. Note that larger numbers will decrease the overall performance of jEdit since these lines are kept in memory.

In the Settings pane there is also a debugging option, Beep on output. It allows for catching problems right after they show up. Each error message entry is accompanied by a system beep. Lower priority entries may be alerted this way, if the `log` option is used, see .