Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: [Ethereal-dev] XUL => native Windows update

[Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In http://www.ethereal.com/lists/ethereal-dev/200311/msg00481.html I
mentioned that I was working on a way to generate a native Windows
interface for Ethereal from XUL definitions, using Python scripts to
generate C code.  The engine has been named "Xulender" (XUL frontend
generator), and a current version can be found at

    http://www.ethereal.com/~gerald/xulender-040206.tar.gz

If you want to try it out, unpack the archive into a current CVS
directory and run "nmake -f Makefile.nmake.win".  Along with the current
crop of executables, "wethereal.exe" is created.  In its present state
it can open capture files, and not much else.

What works:

The container-based layout system is still rudimentary, but it works.
Callbacks via XUL's "oncommand" attribute work.  It was straightforward
to implement native controls (the detail/tree view and byte view).

What doesn't work:

Windows seems reluctant to return accurate text dimensions.  Maybe I'm
not asking it correctly.  Under the Windows C SDK, windows and dialogs
are laid out using radically different methods and have different event
mechanisms.  The About... dialog is implemented as a window, and it's
clunky.  Apparently, the size assigned to the ComboBox control is the
size of its drop-down menu; this doesn't fit into the current layout
system at all.

I'm going to try to finish the display filter code, and tackle the
capture dialog after that.