On Sat, Jul 29, 2000 at 02:16:42PM +0900, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> Hi,
>
> having had a look at Ethereal in trying to document it, and that is not
> complete as yet ... but, I feel that we should perhaps set up some formal
> projects to tackle areas of Ethereal that are perhaps not quite done.
>
> These projects would have members, and would discuss what is to be done
> about various parts of Ethereal, report back, and then implement the
> proposed changes.
>
> I suggest the following projects might be a good start:
>
> 1. GUI cleanup. This project would attempt to make those elements of the
> GUI that are hard to use, or non-intuitive, easier and more intuitive to
> use, if that is possible.
>
> 2. Cleanup of Error messages and error message handling. This project would
> centralize all error messages in one file perhaps, allocate message IDs to
> them, and generally look at the issues of internationalization. This would
> probably include all test strings that are used.
>
> 3. Future versions of Ethereal?
>
> 4. Other projects?
Here's another project:
Code restructure. This involves extracting the last few GTK-specific
sections of code from the generic Ethereal code and moving it to the "gtk"
subdirectory. Furthermore, the dissector code and the ancillary code
(protocol registration, display filters) can be moved into a separate
directory, and can even create an archive library. This is basically
"libdecode using Ethereal 0.x", but it's nowhere near the functionality of
your envisioned libdencode. Similarly, the non-GUI-specific application
code (config file parsing) can be moved to another directory (although
some of it is relevant to the dissector section... that's why people
need to discuss this).
I had thought about waiting to do this until after Ethereal 1.0, but
it's really starting to bug me.
I envision something like:
ethereal/ (the top-level README and INSTALL files, etc.)
doc/
image/
plugins/
gryphon/
wiretap/
dissection/ (dissectors, registration, display filters)
libethereal/ (config file, capture code?, plugins)
gtk/
linemode/
and in some far-off future:
curses/
mfc/
--gilbert