I saw some other topics about this option. All saying the option hides to little. But I think it hides to much. Normally I export the log to xml, and combine this file (FYI with cruisecontrol) with the xml file that msBuild generated. An xsl generates html from that. When I use the option Suppress log messages, I do it to prevent msBuild to log everything into the FbLog.
But then I am missing some (for me) essential information. When Suppress log messages is unchecked, I see the call to msBuild in the log, and after that I see the output of msBuild. But when the option is checked, there is no way for me to see msBuild was called.
I think the FB debug information (e.g. calls to externals) should always be logged, even when the Suppress log messages function is checked. So instead the function should be called “Suppress logging of action output”
Maybe as an extra, there could be an option “Hide in log”, like noticed by other people. When this option is unchecked, this action and all sub actions will show up normally in the xml log, but will have a attribute set “hidden”. The ConvertLogToHTML.xsl should be changed then, to filter out all actions with the “hidden” parameter.