Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] The empty "Tools" menu toplevel item must be removed before the next release

[Daniel Griscom <griscom@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Gerald Combs wrote:
> >  An alternative to keeping it hidden would be to add a default menu item
> >  with the text "Why is this menu empty?", or "How to add items to this
> >  menu", which takes the user to a help page describing how to add items.
> >  
> Don't you think this is a very poor mans solution - in the current lua
> scripting state?
>
> This help page will read something like: "This menu item is to add lua
> scripts. We won't tell you how to write these scripts - the current help
> is pretty much outdated - lua support is still experimental - but in
> case you'll find out you can add them here".

I beg to differ. A lot of Wireshark users (such as myself) aren't 
interested in going through a product's manual line-by-line learning 
the features (especially the fringe ones); we just want to use the 
darn thing. However, we do want to have hints of additional 
capabilities that might become useful at need ("... how the hell do I 
solve this problem... oh, wait, I remember seeing this feature 
somewhere..."). Going through a product's menu items and preferences 
often gives a great high-level precis of its features.

For instance, I had no idea something like Lua scripting was 
available until seeing this discussion, but now I'm wondering about 
using it to prototype my AMF dissector.

So, unless you actually want to discourage users from accessing that 
feature, I think the menu should be present when Lua support is 
present, with an informative menu item automatically added when the 
menu would otherwise be empty. If it currently says "experimental" 
then that's fine; people will learn about Lua support, and if it's 
important enough to them they might dive on in and improve it.


Dan

--
Daniel T. Griscom             griscom@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Suitable Systems              http://www.suitable.com/
1 Centre Street, Suite 204    (781) 665-0053
Wakefield, MA  01880-2400