Build Monitor

Overview

- The Progress display is a visual representation of the distributed build process.
- The Projects display shows, for each project/configuration built, the standard output from the executed tools including warning and error messages.
- The Output display shows the entire build's output text, similar to what would have been generated by Microsoft Visual C++ builds.
- The Summary display contains information and statistics on the current build.

The Build Monitor display will automatically open when starting a build from the Visual Studio IDE or from the Agent menu. It can also be opened by selecting "Open Monitor" from the IncrediBuild menu in the Visual Studio IDE, by double-clicking the IncrediBuild tray-icon or by using the /OPENMONITOR command line console (BuildConsole.exe and xgConsole.exe). If opened while a build is running, the display will show the currently running build. The output for the last run build will be displayed if no build is currently running.

A progress bar located at the right hand side indicates the build's progress. The progress bar is colored according to the current build status (red, yellow or green). Double-click a yellow or red progress bar to jump to the first warning or error in the build output. You can also choose the way the progress bar calculation will handle files that were skipped during the build (count them as completed or disregard them altogether) through the small down-arrow icon located just above the progress bar.

The Different build displays can be selected by clicking on their appropriate icons in the left-hand portion of the Build Monitor:

The Progress Display

The progress display is the Build Monitor's main view, showing a visual representation of the distributed build process. Each file built is represented by a colored bar, colored according to the file's type and status: Blue for a file being built, green for a successfully built file, yellow for files that generated build warnings and finally red for files that failed to build. Bars representing custom build steps, link operations and creation of browse information will be colored cyan once these files have been successfully built.
Holding the mouse pointer above a colored bar will display the elapsed time for that point in the build, as well as any additional information available regarding that file. The display can also be panned to all directions (click and drag mouse) and zoomed in and out (CTRL/SHIFT+mouse click).

A context menu will be displayed when right-clicking a progress bar. This menu offers the following options:

• Go to Output - Jumps to the corresponding line in the Projects display that displays that file's output text. This action will also be performed when double-clicking on a progress bar.
• Go to Source - Opens the source file in the MSVC editor. This option is enabled only when using the monitor from within the Microsoft Visual C++ development environment.
• Zoom In/Zoom Out - Changes the horizontal scale of the display. Zooming in will display longer bars with more room for filenames. It is also possible to zoom in and out using the mouse scrollwheel or the +/- keys.
• View Agents Bar - shows or hides the left-hand side Agents list.
• View Time Bar - Shows or hides the bottom bar displaying time units, progress and processing power.
• View System Graphs - Toggles display of System Graphs that can be used to monitor system state.
• Select System Graphs... - While viewing system graphs, shows the graphs selection window.
• Arrange Agents - Rearranges the order of Agents in the display so that Agents currently participating will be displayed topmost.
• Auto Arrange - When checked, enables a mode of operation that ensures that Agents currently participating will always be displayed topmost.

The buttons in the upper-right hand side of the display can be used to zoom in/out, show or hide the system graphs and toggle the Agents bar/Time bar display.

The Projects Display

The Projects display shows progress and build output for every configuration participating in the current build. The left side of the display shows a list of configurations along with their corresponding build progress bars. Clicking a configuration name will display that configuration's build output on the right-side part of the display, in a format similar to MSVC's output window. This display features the following enhancements over MSVC's standard output display:

- Multi-line messages can be expanded or collapsed to maintain a cleaner display. By default, only multi-line error messages are expanded, and all other messages are initially collapsed. This behavior can be modified via the Agent Settings dialog Build Monitor->General page.
- Warning and error messages are marked with a yellow or red icon respectively, to make locating these messages easier.

When using the Projects display and the Output display, the following features are available (also available from the display's right-click context menu and the toolbar):

• Text Find Tool - Use the CTRL-F keyboard shortcut to perform text searches, and F3/SHIFT-F3 to find the next/previous occurrence of the text respectively.
• Next/Previous Error Message - Use the F8/CTRL-F8 keyboard shortcuts to navigate between error messages in the build output. When used from within the MSVC IDE, this will also open the source file at the relevant line of code in the editor.
• Next/Previous Warning/Error Message - Use the F4/SHIFT-F4 keyboard shortcuts to navigate between warning and error messages in the build output. When used from within the MSVC IDE, this will also open the source file at the relevant line of code in the editor.
• Bookmark options - Use the CTRL-K + K keyboard combination to toggle a bookmark on the current line. Use the CTRL-K + N (next bookmark) and the CTRL-K + P (prev. bookmark) keyboard combinations to jump between the defined bookmarks.
• Open Source File - When used from within the MSVC IDE, Double clicking on a message will open the source file at the relevant line of code in the editor.
• Auto Scroll - When selected, the display will scroll automatically, always showing output for the last files built. Moving the cursor to any location in the text will stop the display from scrolling.

The Output Display

Similar in format to the Projects display, the Output display shows the build output for the entire build, in the same manner Microsoft Visual C++ produces its output. This display may be convenient to users accustomed to MSVC's output display.

The Output display supports the same list of features available in the Projects Display.

Note that because IncrediBuild often builds more than one project at a time, some buffering of the build output is performed to ensure that output for different configurations will not mix. This behavior may result in files not being shown in the Output display despite having already been built. To view build output for all files use the Projects display.

The Summary Display

The Summary Display shows various statistics describing the build process and status, as well as currently utilized processing power and license information.

System Graphs

The Progress view can be used to monitor various system parameters during a build. To view system graphs, right-click the display and select "View system graphs". The graphs display will open showing currently selected graphs. hold the mouse cursor over a graph to see values for currently displayed graphs at the selected point in time.

To control which system parameters are displayed, right-click the display and select "Select system graphs...". A window allowing control of the system parameters and their corresponding graph color will show up.