Tag: debug

It is sometimes tough to determine what is happening in a production environment and you need to get logging information from the add-in to see what is happening. How can you do that?

One way is to build a console.log() option into your add-in that looks for a Debug flag in the manifest. So, you will create two manifest, one that enabled Debugging and another than disables it. More on that in a bit. To start, here is the basic class I created in order to handle this:

[code lang=”javascript” collapse=”true” title=”click to expand if the github.com embedding below is not visible.”]
/*!
* logger JavaScript Library v1.0.1
* http://davecra.com
*
* Copyright David E. Craig and other contributors
* Released under the MIT license
* https://tldrlegal.com/license/mit-license
*
* Date: 2016-08-09T12:00EST
*/
var console = (function () {
"use strict";

var console = {};

console.initialize = function () {
///
<summary>
/// Add a textarea/console to the bottom of the page and then setup the logger
/// </summary>

/// <param name="DebugMode" type="Boolean">If debug mode enabled – we show the console for logging</param>
var debugMode = getParameterByName("Debug") == "true";
if (debugMode) {
// add the console to the screen
$("body").append("<textarea id=’log’ style=’width:100%’ cols=’2000′ rows=’7′ wrap=’off’></textarea>");
$("body").append("<button id=’saveLog’>Copy Log to Clipboard</button>");
$("#saveLog").click(function () {
var field = $("#log");
field.select();
document.execCommand("copy");
});
}

console.log = function (msg) {
///
<summary>
/// GLOBAL: Logs to the textarea on the page
/// </summary>

/// <param name="msg" type="string">The message to log</param>
if (debugMode) {
var d = new Date(Date.now());
var current = d.getHours() + ":" + d.getMinutes() + ":" + d.getSeconds();
var data = $("#log").val();
$("#log").val(current + " – " + msg + "\r\n" + data);
}
};
}

function getParameterByName(name) {
///
<summary>
/// Get a parameter form the URL
/// </summary>

/// <param name="name" type="String">Name of the parameter to get from the query string</param>
/// <returns type="String">Value of the paramater</returns>
var url = window.location.href;
name = name.replace(/[\[\]]/g, "\\$&");
var regex = new RegExp("[?&]" + name + "(=([^&#]*)|&|#|$)"),
results = regex.exec(url);
if (!results) return null;
if (!results[2]) return ”;
return decodeURIComponent(results[2].replace(/\+/g, " "));
}

return console;
})();
[/code]

To enable logging you will add the following code to your initialize:

[code language=”javascript”]

console.initialize();
console.log("Started…");

[/code]

Once initialized this will add a TEXTAREA to the bottom on the page where the log entries will be loaded. Additionally, it will place a “Copy To Clipboard” button at the bottom that when clicked will copy the contents of the TEXTAREA to the clipboard so that they can be forwarded to you as needed.

Once implemented and initialized, you can add a console.log() anywhere you want in your code to add an entry to the log. Now, how do you turn this on. What this is doing in initialize is to see if the debug flag is set in the Query String of the SourceLocation setting in the Manifest. To turn on debugging, you change the following line as such:

[code language=”xml”]

<DesktopSettings>
<SourceLocation DefaultValue="~remoteAppUrl/MessageRead.html?Debug=true"/>
<RequestedHeight>250</RequestedHeight>
</DesktopSettings>

[/code]

That is it. From this you will be able to share two manifests with your users/administrators. The first one will be your default production manifest and the second one can be loaded if you need debugging information from the add-in.