Tracer

The Vault

Opening a port starts recording immediately. Press Save, name the session, and it lands in your vault at ~/SerialApp/Vault/ — a plain folder of plain files, organised like anything else in Finder.

• Anything you never save is still kept under Auto Log/, so a session you didn't expect to matter is recoverable
• Drag to reorganise, rename inline, nest in folders
• Reopen any saved session as a read-only tab — with search, hex, and the decoders all still working on it
• Export to .txt or .csv, with annotations carried along
• No database lock-in: the files are yours, readable without Tracer, forever

NotesPro

Every saved session gets a markdown scratchpad. Wiring, test setup, what you were trying to prove, what you concluded. Saves as you type, travels with the session file, and exports alongside the log.

Inline commentsPro

Right-click any line in the log to pin a note to that exact line. A yellow dot marks it in the margin from then on. Six weeks later, the line where the handshake failed still says why it mattered.

Live search and filtering

Press ⌘F and filter the stream as it arrives — plain text or full regex, with matches highlighted in place. Works identically on a live capture and on a session you recorded last month.

Highlight rulesPro

Colour whole lines by pattern — errors red, handshakes green — so problems stand out while you're watching, not during the post-mortem.

Variable extractionPro

Pull a named value out of each matching line — temperature, RSSI, state — and watch it update live above the log instead of reading it out of the scroll.

The mode picker changes how the data is displayed, never what is captured — so you can switch views on a session you already recorded.

• Console — line-based log with timestamps and RX/TX colouring
• Terminal — a real VT-100 for shells, REPLs, and anything that redraws
• Hex — offset / hex / ASCII dump for binary protocols and framing bugs
• PlotterPro — graphs numeric values as they arrive
• Modbus RTUPro — decodes frames into function code, address, registers, CRC
• Packet decoderPro — split by idle gap, delimiter, or fixed length, then name the fields

Split the pane to run two of them side by side. Console next to hex is how most framing bugs actually get found.

• Line mode for commands, raw mode when every keystroke should go out as a byte
• Hex input, configurable line endings, real Ctrl-C/D/Z, BREAK, and DTR/RTS reset
• Macros — saved text or hex payloads, grouped and reorderable, fired with a click
• Triggered macrosPro — fire when incoming output matches a pattern
• Scheduled macrosPro — fire on an interval for polling loops and soak tests
• CRC calculator with every common preset, plus a custom mode
• File send — stream a file out in chunks with progress and cancel

• Up to four ports open at once, each in its own tab
• USB devices reconnect automatically after a reflash or a replug — the session survives
• Pop-out windowsPro for watching two ports across two monitors
• Scripting APIPro — a local WebSocket server so your own scripts can read and send while you keep watching