Hoptoad client for .NET and log4net

Hoptoad is a web based application that captures your application’s exceptions and errors. It has some simple de-duplication algorithm and forwards new exceptions to your email box. It also tracks your deployment and resolved exceptions.

It is build for Ruby projects but it can be used for .NET apps as well (I wish people behind it would make it more generic than what it is now). For ASP .NET applications, there is another similar application called Exceptioneer but it doesn’t have an open API (you need to add their assembly to your project) and is very isolated to ASP .NET web applications. It is also in private beta.

I use log4net for almost all my projects, so I thought I should write a Hoptoad appender for log4net. The Hoptoad client itself is not locked into log4net and can be used standalone as well. Download the code here

Perhaps the next step is to write the same thing for ELMAH.

To configure the log4net appender use something like the following section:

        <appender name=&amp;quot;HoptoadAppender&amp;quot; type=&amp;quot;SharpHop.HoptoadAppender, SharpHop&amp;quot;>
            <ApiKey value=&amp;quot;xxxx&amp;quot;/>
            <EnvironmentName value=&amp;quot;Dev&amp;quot;/>
            <AppName value=&amp;quot;Your app name&amp;quot;/>
            <AppVersion value=&amp;quot;1.0.0.0&amp;quot;/>
            <AppUrl value=&amp;quot;http://yoururl.com&amp;quot;/>
            <layout type=&amp;quot;log4net.Layout.PatternLayout&amp;quot;>
                <conversionPattern value=&amp;quot;[%thread] %-5level %logger{1}: %message&amp;quot; />
            </layout>
        </appender>

UPDATE: SharpHop now has a home at GoogleCode as an open source project with Apache Licene.