[Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping@xxxxxx>]

Guy Harris wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 29, 2004 at 07:57:21PM +0100, Ulf Lamping wrote:
>  
>
> > I currently find it very unintuitive, where Ethereal finds / uses all 
> > it's directories. There is also no way to get information, what the 
> > current settings are.
> >
> >
> > Example: When I start a capture with the filename "hello.cap", I'm not 
> > sure where the file will be placed into and "of course" there's no way 
> > to change this :-(
> >
> > Some places comes to my mind:
> >
> > - working dir (this is the dir where "hello.cap" would be saved)
> >    
>
> The working directory starts out as the directory in which Ethereal is
> running.
>
> If Ethereal is run from the command line, it'll run in that directory.
>
> It appears that at least some UNIX desktops run Ethereal from your home
> directory if you run it from a desktop/panel icon or a menu item.
>
> If you run it from a desktop shortcut on Windows, and the desktop
> shortcut has a "run it from this directory" setting, it'll be run from
> that directory; I don't know what directory it's run in if that setting
> is absent.  (I can try it on NT 4.0 at some point.)
>
> The NSIS installer, unfortunately, doesn't appear to have a way not to
> specify a "run it from this directory" setting in the shortcut it
> creates; I recently changed ethereal.nsi to make a SetOutPath call to
> set it to $PROFILE, which causes the user's "profile directory" to be
> the "run it from this directory" setting - that directory is the
> equivalent of the home directory on UNIX.
>
>  
I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do. The data in the profile 
directory on win32 will be copied to the server each time
you do a logoff, so this will copy probably a huge amount of data.

Also some people reported, that the working dir must be the same as the 
exe's dir, to work together with GTK-Wimp,
however, I didn't tested this myself.

> > - program dir (where the .exe is, or how it's called under unix)
> >    
>
> I'm not sure it has an equivalent name on UNIX, but it's usually
> something such as "/usr/bin" or "/usr/X11R6/bin" or "/usr/local/bin".
>
> On UNIX, typically there's a top-level directory under which various
> installation subdirectories exist, e.g. "/usr" if the executable is
> installed in "/usr/bin" or "/usr/local" if it's installed in
> "/usr/local/bin".
>
>  
>
> > - plugins dir (where the plugins will be searched for, includes version 
> > string)
> >    
>
> There are two plugin directories - the global one, and the per-user one.
>
> The global one:
>
> 	it's just a subdirectory of the program directory on Windows -
> 	it's the "plugins\{plugin API version}" subdirectory, where
> 	"plugin API version" is currently the version number of
> 	Ethereal;
>
> 	on UNIX, if the top-level installation directory is X, it's the
> 	"X/lib/ethereal/plugins/{plugin API version}" directory.
>
> The per-user one is just the "plugins" subdirectory if your personal
> configuration directory.
>
>  
>
> > - persconf dir (where the personal config files will be placed, e.g. 
> > personal colorfilters)
> >    
>
> On UNIX, that's the ".ethereal" subdirectory of your home directory;
> that follows a common UNIX convention.
>
> On Windows, it's the "Ethereal" subdirectory of:
>
> 	the directory specified by the "APPDATA" environment variable,
> 	if that's set (on English-language Windows, that's probably
> 	something such as "C:\Documents and Settings\{user
> 	name}\Application Data");
>
> 	otherwise, the "Application Data" subdirectory of the directory
> 	specified by the "USERPROFILE" environment variable;
>
> 	otherwise, "C:\".
>
> That's what some specification from Microsoft says (well, modulo the
> fact that the path is supposed to be something such as "{vendor
> name}\{application name}", or something such as that, but there's no
> "Etherealcorp" (well, there's now an "Ethereal, Inc." that owns the
> trademark on the Ethereal logo, but that's somewhat redundant -
> "Ethereal\Ethereal" would be somewhat pointless).
>
> "USERPROFILE" is, at least on NT (including NT 5.x, e.g. W2K, WXP, W2K3
> Server), the user's "profile directory", which is typically
>
> 	x:\WINNT\Profiles\{user login name}
>
> on NT 4.0, where "x:" is your root drive, and typically
>
> 	x:\Documents and Settings\{user login name}
>
> on NT 5.0 (W2K, WXP, W2K3).
>
>  
>
> > - globalconf dir (where the global config files will be placed, e.g. 
> > global colorfilters)
> >    
>
> On UNIX, that's typically the "share/ethereal" subdirectory of the
> top-level installation directory.
>
> On Windows, that's the directory in which the Ethereal executable
> resides.
>
>  
>
> > - tmp dir (where an "unamed" new capture file will be placed)
> >    
>
> If the TMPDIR environment variable is set, that's what's used.
>
> Otherwise, on Windows, if the TEMP environment varible is set, that's
> what's used.
>
> Otherwise, if P_tmpdir is defined at compile time, that's what's used;
>
> Otherwise, "/var/tmp" is used.  (The assumption here is presumably that
> TEMP is always set on Windows, typically to C:\TEMP or something such as
> that).
>
>  
>
> > - file open dir (pref setting already available)
> >
> > Just for a first start, I wanted to get a list of the possible dirs, 
> > some of them might be duplicates.
> > Do I miss something?
> >
> > IMHO we need a new page "Directories" somewhere in Edit/Preferences...
> > Most of the dirs are output only, some might be a new preference setting.
> >
> > What do "the list" think?
> >    
>
> I don't think having a preference setting specifying where the personal
> preference settings are stored is likely to be useful.  :-) Besides,
> that directory follows UNIX and Windows conventions.  The personal
> plugins directory is just a subdirectory of that directory.
>
> The program directory, plugins directory, and global configuration files
> directory are all related, both on UNIX and Windows; they're all set at
> installation time on Windows, and typically at build time on UNIX.  I
> don't see any need to make them a configuration preference; anybody
> who's going to be making *global* changes to Ethereal needs to know
> where it's installed and can presumably figure out where it's installed.
>  
Agreed. I didn't think of making this to preference settings, but to 
find a place where to give this "read only" information to the user.

> The directory where the "Save As..." dialog box starts when saving a
> capture file should perhaps be the file open directory - and the file
> open directory should change if the user saves to some different
> directory.  I suspect that's how it works with most other applications
> on various GUIs.
>
>  
I tend to agree with that, but this has to be investigated a bit further.


Hmmm, I've printed this mail for further reference, as you won't find 
this information anywhere else in the documentation ;-)


However....
I would like to start getting all the dirs where things are used from 
and putting into.
I don't think all of these dir's have to be preference settings, as 
lot's of them related to each other.

Maybe it's a good way to start with *showing* all the dirs to the user 
as "read-only",
as this will be much easier to discuss about :-)

When we have a complete list of the dirs used, we have a good starting 
point to decide,
which of them should be preference settings and how they should behave
and which are only derived dirs and should be read-only (like the plugin 
dirs).

Regards, ULFL