Serilog.Sinks.RichTextBox.WinForms.Colored

A Serilog sink that writes log events to a WinForms RichTextBox with support for coloring and custom themes.

Features

• Colored log events in a WinForms RichTextBox control
• Multiple theme presets with customization options
• High-performance asynchronous processing
• Line limit to control memory usage
• Support for pretty-printing of JSON objects
• WCAG compliant color schemes based on the Serilog WPF RichTextBox sink.

Getting Started

Install the package from NuGet:

Install-Package Serilog.Sinks.RichTextBox.WinForms.Colored

Declare your RichTextBox control:

private System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox richTextBox1;

private void InitializeComponent()
{
    this.richTextBox1.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.Window;
    this.richTextBox1.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
    this.richTextBox1.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Cascadia Mono", 10.8F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Regular, System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point);
    this.richTextBox1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
    this.richTextBox1.Name = "richTextBox1";
}

Configure the logger to use the sink using the RichTextBox extension method:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.RichTextBox(richTextBox1, theme: ThemePresets.Literate)
    .CreateLogger();

Log.Information("Hello, world!");

See the Extension Method for more configuration options.

Configuration Options

Option	Description	Default Value
theme	The color theme applied when rendering individual message tokens.	ThemePresets.Literate
autoScroll	When true (default) the target control scrolls automatically to the most recent log line.	true
maxLogLines	Maximum number of log events retained in the in-memory circular buffer and rendered in the control.	256
outputTemplate	Serilog output template that controls textual formatting of each log event.	[{Timestamp:HH:mm:ss} {Level:u3}] {Message:lj}{NewLine}{Exception}
formatProvider	Optional culture-specific or custom formatting provider used when rendering scalar values; null for the invariant culture.	CultureInfo.InvariantCulture
prettyPrintJson	When true, formats JSON values with indentation and line breaks for better readability.	false
spacesPerIndent	Number of spaces per indentation level when pretty printing JSON.	2

Themes

Available built-in themes:

Theme	Description
ThemePresets.Literate	Styled to replicate the default theme of Serilog.Sinks.Console (default)
ThemePresets.Grayscale	A theme using only shades of gray, white, and black
ThemePresets.Colored	A theme based on the original Serilog.Sinks.ColoredConsole sink
ThemePresets.Luminous	A light theme with high contrast for accessibility

The themes based on the original sinks are slightly adjusted to be WCAG compliant, ensuring that the contrast ratio between text and background colors is at least 4.5:1.

You can create your own custom themes by creating a new instance of the Theme class and passing it to the RichTextBox extension method. Look at the existing themes for examples.

Support the Project 💖

This project has been maintained since 2022 and is still under active development. If you find it useful, please consider supporting it. Your support will help keep the project alive and allow me to dedicate more time to making improvements. You can support it through:

• GitHub Sponsors
• Ko-fi

Every contribution of any size helps sustain ongoing development.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Report issues, improve documentation, or submit pull requests.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

Copyright © 2025 Simon Vonhoff & Contributors - Provided under the Apache License, Version 2.0.