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Wireshark-dev: [Wireshark-dev] Usability question for Wireshark 3.x

From: Roland Knall <rknall@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2019 22:14:17 +0200
Hi

I have a short question. While refactoring the Apply/Prepare menu (due to quite a few issues with enabling/disabling), I stumbled across the items "Copy as Filter", "Expand subtree", "Collapse subtree", and similar items.

I am wondering, if it makes sense to have those in the main menubar. There are three issues with that:

1. They only affect the PacketTree. None of those have any effect on the PacketList or the Byteview and certainly none on any dialogs. The main reason for having them seems to be to enable the shortcuts (very useful), but those functionality could be done with other methods.

2. If a dialog has an expand/collapse functionality (e.g. Protocol Hierarchy), using the entries from the main window don't make sense at all. Also, if you have a PacketDialog window open, select an entry there and then click on the MainWindow the behavior is not what you would expect.

and 3. it illustrates functionality for new users which does not work right away, because they need to know the preconditions. Which makes the start unnecessary complicated.

Should a discussion about this be had? Or is there a good reason to keep the entries, except for nostalgia?

Just want to hear some opinions.

kind regards
Roland