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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Bug 7506: Analyze->Apply as Filter and Analyze->Prepare a Fi

From: Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:17:02 -0400
On Tue, Jul 24, 2012 at 8:52 AM, Bill Meier <wmeier@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> It appears that this bug has existed for a while and has just recently been
> reported by a user.
>
> IOW: maybe accessing  the 'Apply as Filter' and 'Prepare a Filter'
> functionality via the 'Analyze' dropdown isn't used much.
>
> So: Given that there's already a lot of choices on the 'Analyze' drop-down,
> perhaps we should consider just removing these items (as well as 'Apply as
> Column' ?) from the 'Analyze' drop-down.
>
> Obviously the functionality would continue to be accessible via the context
> menu attached to fields in the packet-details pane.
>
> Opinions ?

Frankly, the "Analyze" menu in general has always confused me:

- The name makes me think of running statistical analysis on the
capture, but we also have a "Statistics" menu.
- Many of the items in it apply only to the selected packet and are
also in the context menu, but some (such as Expert Info) apply to the
whole capture.
- Some options (such as "Colorize with Filter") which are grouped in
the context menu with "Apply as Filter" and "Prepare a Filter" don't
even show up under "Analyze" even though all of their neighbors do.

I feel like the entire menu needs a re-think. Here's one option, but
I'm sure there are better ones:

- Rename "Analyze" -> "Filter"
- Move "Expert Info" to "Statistics"
- Move "Enabled Protocols" to "Internals"
- Add "Colorize with Filter" to the "Filter" menu.

Other misc. things that have bubbled up into my head as I've been
thinking about this:

- Rename "Apply as column" to "Create column from selected" which
seems clearer to me
- Merge "Apply as filter" and "Prepare a filter" somehow - they're so
close in functionality that it feels like too much duplication. My
vote would probably just be to drop "Apply as filter", since it's one
extra click after "Prepare a filter" to hit "Apply". The remaining
item could then be renamed "Create filter from..." to match "Create
column from selected"?

Thoughts?