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Ethereal-dev: Re: [ethereal-dev] Should the title bar give the name of the current capture fil

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 23:34:58 -0800
I've checked in changes to put the file name in the title bar and icon
name.  ("kwm" appears not to use the icon name in the task bar; instead,
it puts the window name, in parentheses, there.)

On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 05:13:10AM -0700, Warren Young wrote:
> The Windows 95 style guidelines, FWIW, specify the style "filename -
> Program Name",

That's what I went with:

	filename - Ethereal

If there's no file open, it's the traditional

	The Ethereal Network Analyzer

On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 08:45:05AM -0500, Mark H. Wood wrote:
> I would indeed like to keep the program's name in the title text.  My
> window manager (fvwm2) can do various useful things if you can identify
> the window, but it's identified by the property that the wm uses to title
> the window and icon.

There's a number of window properties that it could use; here's part of
the output of "xprop" on an Ethereal window:

	WM_CLASS(STRING) = "ethereal", "Ethereal"
	WM_ICON_NAME(STRING) = "dhcp-crap.pcap - Ethereal"
	WM_NAME(STRING) = "dhcp-crap.pcap - Ethereal"

Is it using the window or icon name, or is it using the WM_CLASS name? 
(Or can it use either or both?)  The WM_CLASS name has the advantage
that it should have "ethereal" and "Ethereal" in it, regardless of
whether it has a file open or not.

> The name of the current source of information would also be welcome.  On
> Unix et al., the filename without path is probably a good compromise
> between brevity and uniqueness.

Yup - I went with the last component of the file name.

> If this is a live capture then how about "[live]" or something to that effect?

I went with "<capture>"; that's subject to change if others prefer
"<live>" or "<live capture>" or....

BTW, currently, if you're doing an "update the display as packets come
in" capture, the status bar says "<live capture in progress>", but if
you're doing a boring a boring static capture, it says "Ready to load or
capture".  Should it say "<live capture in progress>" in either case? 
And should it say "<capturing>", or something such as that, in the title
bar and icon?

> So, all together, two fairly short tokens:  "Ethereal: somefile.name".

I put the file name first, as per the notes on icon names/taskbar names
typically being truncated on the right - putting the name first means
you lose "Ethereal" rather than the file name (and if we could somehow
arrange to have a reasonable icon image displayed, even in taskbar UIs
such as Windows or KDE - as per earlier mail, you can't get from most
window managers an indication of how big the icon should be, and if you
let them shrink the "e" logo for Ethereal, it looks crappy at 16x16).