Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] using preferences_common to deploy preferences across prof
From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 11:10:25 -0700
On Jun 21, 2013, at 10:56 AM, Stuart Kendrick <skendric@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I was imagining that I could create a preferences_common file (c:\users\{username}\appdata\roaming\wireshark\preferences_common), add a few tool-bar filters:
> 
> ####### Filter Expressions ########
> gui.filter_expressions.label: Exclude-broadcast
> gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE
> gui.filter_expressions.expr: not eth.ig==1
> gui.filter_expressions.label: TAF
> gui.filter_expressions.enabled: TRUE
> gui.filter_expressions.expr: tcp.analysis.flags
> 
> And see those filters appear in /all/ of my profiles.
> 
> But this turns out not to work.  Is my imagination perhaps overactive?

Unfortunately, yes.

> And I must instead add these Filter Expressions to /all/ the preferences files in all my profile directories?

And yes.

In another thread, I suggested

> Would it be useful to allow multiple sets of coloring rules, not associated with a profile, and to have profiles support having more than one set of coloring rules associated with them, evaluated in the order in which they're listed?  We could then ship a simple "starter" set and include various "add-ons", and let the user choose which sets they want.

If we had the notion of a "common" profile in addition to specific profiles, that might be another way to achieve what I suggested.