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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Regarding bug 948 - capture vs preferences

From: "Stuart MacDonald" <stuartm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:41:43 -0500
From: On Behalf Of Stephen Fisher
> restart the program?  I don't think it should work the other 
> way around 
> though - the capture options screen feels more like per 
> capture options 
> to me.

That's exactly what I expected, the main Preferences is the general
default for all captures, and the capture dialog is a per-capture
chance to override.

From: On Behalf Of Ulf Lamping
> A slightly different question remains:
> 
> Do we need these capture related Preference settings anymore 
> as we have 
> the recent file now?

To preserve the "general & per-capture override" mechanism, yes the
Preference settings are needed.

> A more "natural" approach to my eyes would be to save the interface 
> settings (and alike) in the recent file ...

Design question; does Wireshark want the "general & per-capture
override" mechanism? Or a simpler, "repeat last capture" mechanism.

Personally I prefer the "general & per-capture". Usually I want the
same thing as last time, but every once in a while I want something
different, like to capture to ring buffers, or to turn live updating
off. I find the per-capture override very very handy.

> Unfortunately, this leaves the questions open how tshark should be 
> working as it's only working with the settings in the 
> Preferences file :-(

It's okay for a different app (even from the same family) to work
differently.

From: On Behalf Of Jaap Keuter
> The challanges are the way to:
[snip]
> 2. Find a way to incorporate the preference changes into the (possibly
> already changed) capture dialog.

Interesting. There's a conflict of operation between having the
changed preferences update the per-capture dialog, and the dialog
wanting to use the most recent settings.

Suggestion: have the per-capture load the last settings, but check the
preferences. If the preferences do not match, have an extra button to
update the dialog from the preferences instead.

..Stu