Ronnie Sahlberg wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ulf Lamping"
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 5:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Redesign of the WHOLE Ethereal main menu
structure
b. Win32 users usually cannot access the man page :-(, so no help about
the menu is available!
I'm using Ethereal for about 4 years, and didn't expect and even know
that the man pages are describing the menu.
Windows is only one of many many platforms that ethereal is suported on.
The man pages are still converted to HTML as well which the windows users
can access.
I don't have a problem with manpages!
The problem is a bit different. I wouldn't expect further information
from manpages (in whatever format),
when the built-in help system is a bit odd and didn't helped me. I
simply don't expect additional help at that point!
They can access the manpage if they upgrade to cygwin.
A serious user of ethereal/tethereal oin windows already have cygwin
installed already since you just can not
script any advanced features with a non unix shell anyway.
Why do you think, a serious windows user will already have cygwin
installed? You can use ActiveState Perl, or many many other possible
scripting languages.
So please don't expect, that a windows *user* has cygwin installed and
so the manpages will not be available in that form (of course, the html
version is still available).
c. Wouldn't it be a good idea to move at least the menu information from
the man pages into the online help system?
Move NO. Copy yes.
Move sounds like changing it into an online system only and getting rid of
the man page.
An online system (such as the already existing HTML page) IN ADDITION to the
man page
would be useful.
BTW whats wrong with the html page containing the same infor as the manpage?
Now I understand. Sorry, this was a bit misleading, talking about
"online help" here. I meant the built-in help. After understanding the
whole thing, this leads me to the following:
We should have:
One basis of help content (in whatever format, maybe .pod?), which
should be converted automatically to the output formats:
- manpage(s) (unix platforms)
- online help in html format for www.ethereal.com
- manpages in html format for win32 platforms (installed by NSIS)
- GTK built in help for ethereal in ascii? format (every platform)
Only the last point is still open, as the other ones are already
implemented.
I see two possible solutions for this:
a. find a way to display html pages of the help content, directly from
the GTK GUI and get rid of the GTK help dialog
b. convert the help content into an ascii format which is still "human
readable" and use GTK to show this info
I'm not sure, what the best way will be.
Regards, ULFL