Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] New Wireshark welcome page!

["Maynard, Chris" <Christopher.Maynard@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ulf,

 

I like it.  I always thought the blank gray screen at startup was somewhat plain and boring.  We've got all the real estate to do something with, why not put it to good use?

 

Somewhat related to this - I was thinking about proposing a "Wireshark Tips" at startup - the "Did you know?" stuff that many programs have that depict a "Tip of the day" for instance.  A lot of new features keep getting added to Wireshark and I'm not sure everyone is always aware of them, so that might be one way to help introduce these features.  It's easy to assume that everyone will actually go back and re-read the user documentation to find out what's new each time, but I'm not sure that actually happens.  One thing I find about these tips though is that many times they get turned off because it's annoying to have to hit a close button each time upon startup for the tip dialog; however, if there's a section on this new startup page of yours reserved for a "Tip of the day" and perhaps with a "Next Tip" button to cycle through the tips, then the user wouldn't have to close an extra dialog.  That to me would seem like it would be useful.

 

OK, other than that, here is some initial feedback:

1) The "Open Recent" middle portion seems to right-justify the files and cut off the beginning of the path.  It looks strange to me, although left-justification would probably show the path and cut off the filename itself, which would probably be less useful.  Perhaps word-wrapping the filename would work well here?

2) Clicking on the "Capture Options" results in a Wireshark crash.  (At least on Windows XP).  I can send a dump if needed, but it happens every time so I would suspect you would be able to easily reproduce it.

3) Security: Text should read, "Work with Wireshark as securely as possible"

4) Show some "tooltips" when highlighting one of the choices.  For example, when the cursor is hovering on the "Security" link, the tooltip could show the http://wiki.wireshark.org/Security URL that you will go to if you click on it.

5) Moving various other windows across the page seems to corrupt it.  See sample screen capture, attached.

6) Add a development section?  Getting started, README.developer, SVN link, mailing lists, bugzilla, buildbot, reporting bugs, links to IETF (for RFC's), IANA, etc.???

7) Since Wireshark is hosted by CACE, maybe they'd like to plug their site?  WiresharkU?

 

- Chris

---

From: Ulf Lamping
Sent: Wed 4/16/2008 9:21 PM
To: wireshark-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Wireshark-dev] New Wireshark welcome page!

Hi!

I've just finished the initial version of a Wireshark welcome page.

That welcome page is shown when no capture file is loaded - well, you'll 
immediately see it just when you start Wireshark (SVN25083 or later).


It contains stuff that should be useful to start work with Wireshark 
(both helpful for newbies and "old fellows") and contains three parts:

Capture: Start a capture (incl. special help)
Files: Open a file
Online: What to find online

Some remarks:
- as you cannot see this welcome page once a capture file is loaded, it 
doesn't contain stuff related to actually work with a loaded capture 
file, e.g. it doesn't contain a link to the protocol reference.
- I wanted to keep the number of items low, to not have too many 
confusing details
- I hesitated to put too much work into the implementation before going 
public (although it was already a lot), e.g. the current interface list 
is fixed until a Wireshark restart.


I would be interested in feedback:
- was the page intuitive right from the start or was something really 
confusing?
- something missing / should be added?
- should something really be removed?
- what do you think about this page in general?
- bugs?


Regards, ULFL

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