Ethereal-users: Re: [Ethereal-users] global colorfilters,cfilters and dfilters files?

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 12:41:24 -0800
On Wed, Feb 19, 2003 at 07:23:17PM +0100, Lindholm Roger wrote:
> Anyone who knows if it is possible to have a global colorfilters file as
> well as display and capturefilters (on Windows) in the same way as
> ethereal.conf works? I.e. set default values for colors on captured packets,
> capture and display filters using central files for all users on a system.

It would probably be possible to change the code that reads the color
filter file, display filter file, and capture filter file so that it
either

	1) read the user's file if it exists, otherwise read a global
	   file if it exists

or

	2) read a global file if it exists, and then read the user's
	   file if it exists and override existing entries and add new
	   ones.

> I'm also interested to know if there has been any more discussions
> regarding adding default colors as was discussed -long- time ago on this
> list. Was it any reason for not implementing it (except from the problem on
> deciding colors...)?

It wouldn't make sense for Ethereal to supply a default color filter
list, given that

	1) some users won't want colors at all (and there *is* a cost to
	   doing coloring - if you're doing coloring, Ethereal has to
	   construct a protocol tree for every packet when reading the
	   capture in)

and

	2) not all users will necessarily want the same colors.

Supplying a *sample* color filter file, which is *not* installed as a
default color filter file (e.g., install it in the configuration
directory as "colorfilters.sample"), might make sense.  Supplying
*multiple* color filter sample files might also make sense.