Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] -title for managing multiple instances of ethereal
On Oct 8, 2003, at 9:07 AM, Dolbow, Bill wrote:
Hey guys, We are using Ethereal on Redhat as a distributed sniffer at
my
company. We are really enjoying it, including the best feature of all
which is multiple instances of ethereal running, BUT, we would like to
have
a -title type of option. We get lost with multiple X-windows open
sniffing
different segments or with different captures.
Can we get a command line option like -title on the radar screen.
Ethereal uses "getopt()", so options must have single-letter names,
meaning "-title" wouldn't work. "-T" is already taken, unless we
decide that setting the tree view pane height from a command-line
option isn't useful.
We could use the GNU "getopt_long()", provide "--title", and carry our
own copy for platforms that don't have it, although note that there's
more than one implementation of it, which differ in some behaviors:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?
query=getopt_long&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+5.1-
current&format=html
(This message:
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/autoconf/2000-12/msg00032.html
asserts that FreeBSD has a "gnugetopt" library for it, but the FreeBSD
5.0 man page says it's in libc; perhaps it was in libgnugetopt in some
older BSDs.)
It should
put the text in the title bar of both the main window and the capture
window
when a capture is running. Maybe we can shorten "The Ethereal Network
Analyzer" to just "Ethereal - (title passed via command line)".
"(title passed via command line) - Ethereal" would probably be better.
Most desktop environments and window managers truncate window titles at
the right if they truncate (e.g., in icons/taskbar items), so the
application name is probably best put at the end (at least for
applications with icons), although that might cause problems for blind
users (if the screen-reading software can't get the name of the
application for a window in other ways).
That's why, when a named capture file is open, we make the window title
"(filename) - Ethereal".
BTW, that raises another question - if the user specifies, for example
ethereal --title "This morning's SYN flood attack" syn_flood.pcap
should the "--title" override the file name, so that the title would be
This morning's SYN flood attack - Ethereal
rather than
syn_flood.pcap - Ethereal
?
In addition, the current version of Microsoft Network Monitor has,
under the Window menu for capture files, a "Label" item, to let you set
the window title. Something such as that might be useful in Ethereal.
Also, as the problem is probably more severe when capturing or when you
have a temporary capture file rather than a named capture file, a field
in the Capture dialog box to let you set the title might be useful.
