Is there a tool to detect log files that have been written to This is my first question to apple.stackexchange, hopefully it's on topic :)

As a developer, there are frequently things written to log files (exceptions or other status information) that I'm interested in.  My current workflow is that I simply tail -f /path/to/log when I know that I'm doing something where I may want to see the output of a log file.

But because of the nature of Magento development in particular, and I'd imagine most development work in general, many times you're not exactly aware of which log file might be getting written to, or even if you are, you may not remember to tail it and get stuck scratching your head at why something is happening or where to get some feedback on what's going on in your system.

I've been daydreaming about a tool that I hope may exist - that would pop a little notification bubble when a log file is written to, and maybe when you click on it, it pops a terminal tail -f'ing it for you.  And for bonus points maybe even auto cascades terminals when you tail more than one log file.

Does anything like this exist?
The console viewer app has bounce notifications in the preferences for that app.



You'll want to open a window with each log you are watching, but this app should cover most use cases of log file watching. Since Console retains window settings when you quit the App, you should only need to open the files once (or worst case, make a folder with aliases to each log you want and open them all from Finder to get a head start on the logs you like to watch). I'll also plug the Divvy tool for managing many windows. Watch the video on their site - it's very powerful if you want to set regions for windows rapidly.