Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Menu Usability Changes

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From: Nathan Jennings <njen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:39:15 -0400
Ulf Lamping wrote:

<snipped... (capture filter syntax)>

A "better than nothing" solution (and quick to implement) would be to include the text from the user's guide into the online help fields, for the capture and display filters.

For a first step, I will add some text to the online help
(maybe copied from the user's guide), that will explain the filter usage
of both filters. But don't expect this in the next days.


I think this would be a big "first step" in providing help for {new,casual} users. I've witnessed this at work where sometimes it's a significant stumbling block. I think some practical, common, real-world examples would go a long way.

Having said that, I'd like to suggest that, in addition to what you pull from the user's guide, we provide some additional examples. Google found a couple of pages covering the syntax with examples:

http://home.insight.rr.com/procana/
http://openxtra.com/support/kb/advanced-packet-filtering_html

Depending on how much you think should be included, I'll condense/modify the information above into a proposed list if it's agreed this is a good idea.

-Nathan