Gerald Combs wrote:
An alternative to keeping it hidden would be to add a default menu item
with the text "Why is this menu empty?", or "How to add items to this
menu", which takes the user to a help page describing how to add items.
Don't you think this is a very poor mans solution - in the current lua
scripting state?
This help page will read something like: "This menu item is to add lua
scripts. We won't tell you how to write these scripts - the current help
is pretty much outdated - lua support is still experimental - but in
case you'll find out you can add them here".
I beg to differ. A lot of Wireshark users (such as myself) aren't
interested in going through a product's manual line-by-line learning
the features (especially the fringe ones); we just want to use the
darn thing. However, we do want to have hints of additional
capabilities that might become useful at need ("... how the hell do I
solve this problem... oh, wait, I remember seeing this feature
somewhere..."). Going through a product's menu items and preferences
often gives a great high-level precis of its features.
For instance, I had no idea something like Lua scripting was
available until seeing this discussion, but now I'm wondering about
using it to prototype my AMF dissector.
So, unless you actually want to discourage users from accessing that
feature, I think the menu should be present when Lua support is
present, with an informative menu item automatically added when the
menu would otherwise be empty. If it currently says "experimental"
then that's fine; people will learn about Lua support, and if it's
important enough to them they might dive on in and improve it.
Dan
--
Daniel T. Griscom griscom@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Suitable Systems http://www.suitable.com/
1 Centre Street, Suite 204 (781) 665-0053
Wakefield, MA 01880-2400