- Table of Contents
- Next Chapter

# Chapter 1: Introduction

`XWatch` is a small program that I wrote to monitor logfiles and to see any changes directly (instead of having to read all the logs after a breakin or a crash). `XWatch` is simply started with a few file arguments, and any information that appears on the files is displayed. With a slider you can see past information; i.e., lines that scroll in `xwatch`'s window. That's all there is to it. The appearance of the `xwatch` window can furthermore be modified via command line flags or via an application defaults file. (Older versions of `XWatch` had a button to activate an `options' window. I removed this code, almost no-one uses it.)

`XWatch` is incidentally my first applications with the XForms GUI library for X, which I can highly recommend for developers who want to start `X programming' but who don't want to go through the hassle of having to learn about intrinsics. XForms is really excellent. Congrats, T.C. Zhao and Mark Overmars (the latter is rumored to bootleg at a soccer club in his free time ;). Instructions on where and how to get the XForms library are in the `Makefile`, contained in `xwatch`'s distribution.

Debian maintainer note: XWatch doesn't have an active upstream maintainer. If you are interested in taking over this package, please see the file /usr/share/doc/xwatch/README.debian

- Table of Contents
- Next Chapter