freekmurze

<a href="https://myray.app" rel="nofollow ugc">Ray</a> is a beautiful, lightweight desktop app that helps you debug your app. There’s a <a href="https://myray.app" rel="nofollow ugc">free demo</a> available that can be unlocked with a <a href="https://spatie.be/products/ray" rel="nofollow ugc">license</a>.
After installing this plugin, you can use the <code>ray()</code> function to quickly dump stuff. Any variable(s) that you pass to <code>ray()</code> will be displayed.
Here some examples:
<pre><code>ray('Hello world');

ray(['a' => 1, 'b' => 2])->color('red');

ray('multiple', 'arguments', 'are', 'welcome');

ray()->showQueries();
</code></pre>
There are many other helper functions available on Ray that allow you to display things that can help you debug such as <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/framework-agnostic-php-project#measuring-performance-and-memory-usage" rel="nofollow ugc">runtime and memory usage</a>, <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/wordpress#showing-queries" rel="nofollow ugc">queries that were executed</a>, and much more.
<h3>Full Documentation</h3>
The extensive documentation can be found <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>.
It contains the <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/installation-in-your-project/wordpress" rel="nofollow ugc">installation instructions</a> for WordPress.
After it is installed you can use any of the <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/framework-agnostic-php-project" rel="nofollow ugc">framework agnostic</a> and <a href="https://spatie.be/docs/ray/v1/usage/wordpress" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress specific functions</a>.

Just start using it and it saves me a lot of time & mistakes.
It takes only a few minutes to configure and helps me a lot in my daily work.

A very good solution for a quick & effucient debugging

Easy to use, great tool

It's much easier to use Ray than do all the error_log() and var_dump() calls on a page. You do not interrupt the flow (but you can pause it!) although receive all the needed information.

It's less powerful than Xdebug (although they have different purposes and use cases), but more flexible than printing debug output on a page/debug-bar/error log.

I highly recommend it.

Awesome tool to help developers debug the code

I was having trouble debugging an issue in my WP Cron task. It's quite complex and calls out to an external database in multiple places, so trying to figure out where the issue was started driving me insane.

As there was a PHP error in my code (I was trying to call a method on null) my logger wasn't picking up any issues, nor was it even logging sometimes and no exceptions were being thrown.

After installing Ray it worked right away with no setup (other than installing it with Composer). I then managed to find the issue in about 5 minutes because of Ray's simplicity and speed in giving you the output.

The UI is minimal which is perfect as nothing gets in your way while trying to debug and having everything formatted beautifully is a massive win over basic debug logging.

I bought a licence right away and would have happily paid 2x the price I did.

Amazingly simple yet powerful 👌

Where logging fails, Ray prevails


I've been using Ray for quite a while now and I have to say, it's one of the most useful dev tools I use! Gone are the days of spewing vardump and print_r to the screen!


Extremely helpful tool!


I use this plugin everyday while doing WordPress dev work.  It's a great tool.  


Very Helpful Dev Tool

Pär Thernström

Bring more loggers to <a href="https://simple-history.com" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress user history plugin Simple History</a>. 
That are useful for developers during development of a site or to maintain a live site.
<h3>Important</h3>
Please note that this plugin is no longer actively maintained and only receives security fixes.
<h3>Modern and up to date alternatives</h3>
For an up to date alternative please see the <a href="https://simple-history.com/add-ons/debug-and-monitor/" rel="nofollow ugc">Debug & Monitor add-on</a> which logs WP REST API requests, sent emails, HTTP API requests, and WP cron jobs.
<h3>Get more features with Simple History Premium</h3>
Need advanced WordPress audit logging capabilities? Simple History Premium extends your site monitoring with powerful features:
Enhanced WordPress Activity Logging:
<ul>
<li>Advanced Analytics Dashboard – Comprehensive stats and visual activity tracking</li>
<li>Custom Event Logging – Add manual entries and notifications to your audit trail</li>
<li>Stealth Mode – Control user access with granular permissions</li>
<li>Flexible Log Retention – Configure automatic cleanup or keep logs indefinitely</li>
<li>Data Export Tools – Export logs in CSV/JSON format for analysis</li>
<li>Security Features – IP anonymization and login attempt location tracking</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://simple-history.com/premium/" rel="nofollow ugc">» Get Simple History Premium</a>
<h3>Included loggers and plugins</h3>
Post to Slack
All your events is posted to a <a href="https://slack.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Slack</a> channel of your choice, using an <a href="https://api.slack.com/incoming-webhooks" rel="nofollow ugc">incoming webhook</a>. Yes, with this plugin enabled 
there is no need what so ever to ever leave Slack to see what’s happening on your site or the site of your 
clients or… well, on any site where you have Simple Histor and this plugin enabled.
WP_Mail-logger
See all mails sent with wp_mail(), no matter what the recipient address is. 
changelog
404 logger
View page visits that load the 404 template.
JavaScript error logger
See what JavaScript errors users that visit your site is getting.
SystemLog logger
Log all messages from Simple History to the syslog on the server. With this logger enabled there is no need to use the beautiful GUI of Simple History ;).
HTTP API logger
Log all usage of HTTP calls from functions like wp_remote_post() and wp_remote_get().
You can the URL requested, the arguments posted and the full returned result, including server headers.
The time for the request to complete is also logged. Great for debugging!

Developer Loggers for Simple History

Useful loggers for SimpleHistory for developers during development of a site or to maintain a live site.

Ray vs Developer Loggers for Simple History