If you would post a minimal config file where the problem occurs, then we could look what the problem is.

Would it be possible to create a new command "List format <attribute> = <css_class_name>,<css_class_value>,<width>,<size>", or is there another way to achieve this?

Okay, found some solution for my problem:

And file themes/default/pikett.css contains:

That works like a charm - until I log in to the logbook. Then the include of the CSS in the header is garbled with some "prefix" of random chars:

And a quick check in the source code shows some bad code:

L7615: function "show_html_header"

Here css_base is a not initialized local variable of the function. In fact the above line is the only reference of that variable char css_base[1000].

The bug is still present in elog-3.1.4-611489b

I should tell that I found a simpler way to achieve the same:
I suppress the "text" field and use a single line text input field instead.
The single line input in "free text" modes just contains "<br>" : I would have had to use those in the text field anyway.

There is a python API to access ELOG via HTTP: https://github.com/paulscherrerinstitute/py_elog

EDIT: forget the tip below. Instead just call script files: inline scripting in the ELOG config shows very strange behavior. Doing the same in external scripts works reliable.

I just spend an hour searching for a problem. To avoid others to spend the hour again, here's a little "special behaviour" of shell execution in ELOG you should know about:

If you want to do redirect to a file in a shell execution, put a space before and after the redirecting. The following does not work:

You will not get an error message, but the file is not created. But if you add a space it will work as expected:

It is not really a bug; if you know about it, then it is not a big deal: hence this entry here. I saw this behavior on a Linux RHEL7 system.

In case you are wondering: I use this to create a default for the field CampaignID, to be used for new entries in combination with a Preset:

My config files are often large and use some shell scripting. In these shell scripting part I interact with files and execute scripts in specific folder.
It would be nice to have the ability to define for example a file path once and reuse it in different parts of the config file. It would help to make config files cleaner. For example: