Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] patches to add interface descriptions

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From: Richard Urwin <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 18:09:30 +0100
On Tuesday 09 Sep 2003 3:36 pm, Nathan Jennings wrote:
> Graham Bloice wrote:
> > On a UI note:
> >
> > 1.  The list boxes in the Interface Options dialog seem too shallow
> > to me. When an horizontal scroll bar is displayed, the list box
> > isn't tall enough to display even a single row of text completely. 
> > I would suggest that the list boxes be sized to display 2 and a
> > fraction rows.
>
> OK, maybe even more in the "Edit interface options" interface list.
> On *nix with a loopback and Linux with "any", users will have at
> least three interfaces. I'll work on defaulting it to 3 rows
> (including a scrollbar :o)).

IIRC, there's a lot more than three on my Win2000 setup.

>
> > 2.  It's not entirely obvious to me when changes take effect.  To
> > see the effect of changes, one has to dismiss the dialog, and
> > redisplay it again. Could the change of selected entry in the
> > interface list be used to update the top list?
>
> I thought this might be confusing... I tried to pick a wording for
> the frame text, "Previously saved options", that would indicate it
> wouldn't change as you modified the options below it. In other words,
> I intended this table to be only a summary of the options you had
> already saved. By having this summary, you wouldn't have to click on
> each interface to view/remember what options you had saved. (This is
> especially nice if you have a lot of interfaces in a machine.)
>
> Using "saved" in the frame text isn't really correct either, because
> it's only saved if you select OK and then click "Save" in the capture
> preferences dialog.
>
> Any suggestions for wording to make it more clear? Like maybe
> "Current options (will not update while editing below)"? :o)

I haven't seen this interface, but based on your description...

There is a related problem in color filters, where the filters you edit 
remain in the current filter list even if you hit Cancel.

IMHO, both dialogs should display the currently edited list, but should 
discard all changes if the user hits Cancel.

-- 
Richard Urwin