Based on the standard UN*X commands that perform similar tasks the modes are called: TAIL-Mode: Xlogmaster will read the file and then check back in regular intervals (default: 0.3 seconds) whether anything has changed - practically the same functionality you got with "tail -f" but just much nicer to handle and look at. If you monitor more than two logfiles it makes things much easier already. CAT-Mode: This mode keeps on "catting" the file/device you have given it in user defined intervals. The first thing that will probably come to your mind now is: "Cool ! I can keep track of all the /proc devices that are of interest for me." (didn't it ? :-) ) Whatever - I really like this mode. RUN-Mode: The run mode allows starting a program and retrieving it's stdout. This allows you to write a shellscript/program to gather any data that's important for you and monitor the output in Xlogmaster - with all the features Xlogmaster has. The retrieved information may then be piped through a plugin - the plugins take the data on stdin and output it to stdout which is being read by Xlogmaster again. This enables you to translate cryptic logfiles or extracting information in a special way. After reading the data from the TAIL/CAT/RUN modes (and piping it through the plugin if wished) it can then be processed in certain ways. The obvious one is displaying it in the text window. To make this more comfortable you can define filters that allow you to raise, lower or hide lines on a extended REGEX match. Since version 1.3.0 Xlogmaster supports background monitoring, as well - you can define filters that trigger certain actions based on a case-insensitive substring match. The entry does not need to be active for that. George invented a classification for the filters to help show how they work on different levels. The Class0 filters are filters that are applied at display-time and the Class1 filters are used in the background. Implemented filters are: