Console Panel

The Console Panel is a dockable panel located at the bottom of the dashboard that provides real-time visibility into CAN bus traffic, system problems, and plugin output. It consists of three main tabs: Terminal, Problems, and Output.

Panel Basics

Overview of the collapsed and expanded console panel with tab bar visible

Showing and Hiding the Panel

Drag the top edge up or down to resize the panel height (100-600 pixels)
Drag below 50 pixels to collapse the panel completely
Click a tab while the panel is collapsed to expand it
Click the active tab again to collapse the panel

The panel remembers its height and active tab between sessions.

Tab Bar

The tab bar shows three built-in tabs plus any plugin-provided tabs:

Terminal - Live CAN frame display and command input
Problems - System and plugin errors with a badge showing the count
Output - Plugin debug logs with performance monitoring

Terminal Tab

The Terminal tab provides a real-time view of CAN bus traffic and allows you to send CAN frames manually.

Terminal tab showing CAN frames with columns: Time, Dir, Channel, ID, DLC, Flags, Data

Frame Display

Column	Description
Time	Timestamp in HH:MM:SS.mmm format
Dir	Direction: RX (received) or TX (transmitted)
Channel	CAN channel (1 or 2)
ID	CAN arbitration ID in hexadecimal
DLC	Data Length Code (number of bytes)
Flags	Frame flags in hex (e.g., 0x40 for TX)
Data	Payload bytes in hexadecimal

Color coding:

Green text - Transmitted frames (TX)
Red text - Error frames
White text - Normal received frames (RX)

Frame Flags Reference

The Flags column displays a hex byte where each bit indicates a frame property:

Bit	Hex	Flag	Description
0	`0x01`	Extended	Extended frame format (29-bit CAN ID)
1	`0x02`	RTR	Remote Transmission Request
2	`0x04`	Error	Error frame
3	`0x08`	FD	CAN FD frame
4	`0x10`	BRS	Bit Rate Switch (CAN FD only)
5	`0x20`	ESI	Error State Indicator (CAN FD only)
6	`0x40`	TX	Frame was transmitted (vs. received)

Flags combine — for example, 0x59 means Extended + FD + BRS + TX.

Common values:

0x00 — Standard received frame
0x01 — Extended ID received frame
0x08 — CAN FD received frame
0x18 — CAN FD with BRS received
0x40 — Standard transmitted frame
0x48 — CAN FD transmitted frame
0x58 — CAN FD with BRS transmitted

Auto-scroll Behavior

The display auto-scrolls to show new frames
Scrolling up automatically pauses auto-scroll so you can inspect past frames
New frames continue to buffer while paused
Scrolling to the bottom resumes auto-scroll

Channel Filter

Use the channel dropdown to filter: All CH, CH 1, or CH 2.

Search and Filter

Click the search icon to open the filter panel:

Search Input - Type to filter frames by content
Column Selector: All columns, ID only, or Data only
Filter Mode: Hide (non-matching hidden) or Dim (non-matching dimmed)

A dot indicator appears on the search button when a filter is active.

Sending CAN Frames

The command input at the bottom allows you to transmit CAN frames using cansend syntax:

cansend <channel> <id>#<data>          # Standard CAN
cansend <channel> <id>##<data>         # CAN FD (double hash)

Examples:

cansend 1 123#DEADBEEF           # Standard frame on channel 1
cansend 2 7FF#01.02.03.04        # Dots are optional separators
cansend 1 1ABCDEF8#0102030405    # Extended ID (>0x7FF) auto-detected
cansend 1 123##01020304050607    # CAN FD frame (up to 64 bytes)

Rules:

Channel must be 1 or 2
ID is in hexadecimal (0x7FF max for standard, 0x1FFFFFFF for extended)
Data bytes are in hexadecimal (max 8 bytes for standard, 64 for FD)

Command History: Use Up/Down Arrow keys to recall previous commands.

Problems Tab

The Problems tab aggregates errors from both the system and loaded plugins.

Problems tab showing a list of errors with severity icons, timestamps, and expandable details

Error Display

Each error shows:

Severity icon - Error (red), Warning (yellow), Info (blue)
Timestamp - When the error occurred
Type badge - SYS (system) or PLG (plugin)
Error code - e.g., INIT_FAILED, CAN_ERROR, SYS_42
Source - Plugin ID for plugin errors
Fatal badge - Shown for non-recoverable errors

Expanding Error Details

Click any error row to expand it and see:

Details - Extended description
Resolution - Suggested fix
Stack trace - For plugin errors
Context - Additional data
Help link - For system errors, links to the help article

Filtering Errors

Use the toolbar filters:

Severity: All, Errors, Warnings, Info
Source: All, Plugins, System
Error Code: All, Init Failed, Reader Error, Writer Error, CAN Error, Trigger Error, etc.
Search Box - Free text search

Error Badge

The Problems tab shows a red badge with the error count when there are active problems.

Clearing Errors

Click Clear to dismiss all errors. System errors may reappear if the underlying condition persists.

Output Tab

The Output tab shows debug logs from loaded plugins and provides performance monitoring capabilities.

Output tab showing plugin log messages with timestamps, levels, plugin IDs, and messages

Log Display

Time - Timestamp in HH:MM:SS.mmm format
Level - ERROR (red), WARN (amber), INFO (blue), DEBUG (gray), TRACE (gray)
Plugin - The plugin that generated the log
Message - The log content

Debug Level Control

Controls which messages are shown: Off, Error, Warn, Info (default), Debug, Trace. Higher levels include all lower levels.

Plugin Filter

Select a specific plugin or All Plugins.

Search Logs

Click the search icon to filter logs by all columns, message only, or plugin ID. Choose Hide or Dim mode.

Performance Monitoring

Click the chart icon to access performance monitoring:

Click Start Monitoring to begin collecting metrics
Per-plugin statistics:
- Health indicator - Healthy (green), Warning (amber), Critical (red)
- Frame rate - Frames processed per second
- Pending - Frames waiting in buffers
- Dropped - Frames lost due to slow processing
- Handler latency - Median, p99, and max processing times

Expand a plugin row for detailed metrics: health score, trend, time breakdown, per-reader stats, and health reasons.

Tips

Keep the Terminal open during live data capture to monitor for unexpected frames or errors
Use channel filtering when debugging a specific CAN bus to reduce noise
Check the Problems tab when widgets aren't updating - plugin errors often explain the issue
Start performance monitoring if you notice laggy charts - it helps identify slow plugins
Use the dim filter mode instead of hide to maintain context while highlighting matches
Collapse the panel when you need more screen space for charts