Setting up Log4Net Colored Console Made Easy - log4net

Question

I am looking for a Log4Net viewer that I can watch in realtime in a separate console window not in the Visual Studio output window where its mixed with hundreds of other messages.
I see there is a ManagedColoredConsoleAppender and ColoredConsoleAppender out of the box, but unsure how to get the output to be directed to an external console window. Ideally, when you debug the console window would launch, but not a requirement.
I have used the OutputDebugger back in the day, but have not found an easy way to get all this working.
If somebody could share how to get all this wired up and working quickly that would be much appreciated.
This would mainly be used for development locally, but would be nice if we could redirect errors from staging and qa to a nice little window on my machine to see whats going on in realtime!

Answer 1

The ColoredConsoleAppender (and it's successor, ManagedColoredConsoleAppender) won't start a console for you.
However, if you start a console up manually, they will use it - here's a sample:
class Program {
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", EntryPoint = "GetStdHandle", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
private static extern IntPtr GetStdHandle(int nStdHandle);
[DllImport("kernel32.dll", EntryPoint = "AllocConsole", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
private static extern int AllocConsole();
private const int STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = -11;
private const int MY_CODE_PAGE = 437;
private static readonly object lockObj = new object();
static void Main(string[] args) {
AllocConsole();
IntPtr stdHandle = GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE);
SafeFileHandle safeFileHandle = new SafeFileHandle(stdHandle, true);
FileStream fileStream = new FileStream(safeFileHandle, FileAccess.Write);
Encoding encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(MY_CODE_PAGE);
StreamWriter standardOutput = new StreamWriter(fileStream, encoding) { AutoFlush = true };
Console.SetOut(standardOutput);
XmlConfigurator.Configure();
var log = LogManager.GetLogger("test");
log.Debug("Starting Program");
log.Error("Oh no, an error");
// etc
This is the output:
The configuration is really simple:
<log4net>
<appender name="ColoredConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ColoredConsoleAppender">
<mapping>
<level value="ERROR" />
<foreColor value="White" />
<backColor value="Red, HighIntensity" />
</mapping>
<mapping>
<level value="DEBUG" />
<backColor value="Green" />
</mapping>
<layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
<conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
</layout>
</appender>
<root>
<level value="DEBUG" />
<appender-ref ref="ColoredConsoleAppender" />
</root>