Serilog.Sinks.RichTextBox.WinForms.Colored

A Serilog sink that writes log events to a WinForms RichTextBox with support for coloring and custom themes.

Features

• Colored log events in a WinForms RichTextBox control
• Multiple theme presets with customization options
• High-performance asynchronous processing
• Line limit to control memory usage
• Support for pretty-printing of JSON objects
• WCAG compliant color schemes based on the Serilog WPF RichTextBox sink.

Getting Started

Install the package from NuGet:

Install-Package Serilog.Sinks.RichTextBox.WinForms.Colored

Declare your RichTextBox control:

private System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox richTextBox1;

private void InitializeComponent()
{
    this.richTextBox1.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.Window;
    this.richTextBox1.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
    this.richTextBox1.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Cascadia Mono", 10.8F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Regular, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point);
    this.richTextBox1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
    this.richTextBox1.Name = "richTextBox1";
}

Configure the logger to use the sink using the RichTextBox extension method:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.RichTextBox(richTextBox1, theme: ThemePresets.Literate)
    .CreateLogger();

Log.Information("Hello, world!");

See the Extension Method for more configuration options.

Configuration Options

| Option | Description | Default Value | |-------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------| | theme | The color theme applied when rendering individual message tokens. | ThemePresets.Literate | | autoScroll | When true (default) the target control scrolls automatically to the most recent log line. | true | | maxLogLines | Maximum number of log events retained in the in-memory circular buffer and rendered in the control. | 256 | | outputTemplate | Serilog output template that controls textual formatting of each log event. | [{Timestamp:HH:mm:ss} {Level:u3}] {Message:lj}{NewLine}{Exception} | | formatProvider | Optional culture-specific or custom formatting provider used when rendering scalar values; null for the invariant culture. | CultureInfo.InvariantCulture | | prettyPrintJson | When true, formats JSON values with indentation and line breaks for better readability. | false | | spacesPerIndent | Number of spaces per indentation level when pretty printing JSON. | 2 |

Themes

Available built-in themes:

| Theme | Description | |--------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | ThemePresets.Literate | Styled to replicate the default theme of Serilog.Sinks.Console (default) | | ThemePresets.Grayscale | A theme using only shades of gray, white, and black | | ThemePresets.Colored | A theme based on the original Serilog.Sinks.ColoredConsole sink | | ThemePresets.Luminous | A light theme with high contrast for accessibility |

The themes based on the original sinks are slightly adjusted to be WCAG compliant, ensuring that the contrast ratio between text and background colors is at least 4.5:1.

You can create your own custom themes by creating a new instance of the Theme class and passing it to the RichTextBox extension method. Look at the existing themes for examples.

Support the Project 💖

This project is still under active development.

If you find this project valuable, please consider supporting it through:

• GitHub Sponsors
• Star on GitHub

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! You may report issues, improve documentation, or submit pull requests.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

License

Copyright © 2025 Simon Vonhoff & Contributors - Provided under the Apache License, Version 2.0.