Right now there is no way to include a "Decode As" protocol list as a specific preference of a dissector.
I thought I may get some resistance here because I broke "backwards compatibility", but I thought the trade off of more easily adding dissectors to a Decode As list and having an "overall" more consistent GUI was a better decision. Specific users of a dissector may be used to going to preferences of a dissector for "Decode As" functionality, but there is no consistency. I have to go to "Preferences" for P_Mul, but not TCP or UDP. Why? Because someone added the GUI code in Decode As for TCP and UDP (when such code existed) but never got around to doing P_Mul (or some of the other more niche dissectors). I'd like to be able to "train" users (and developers) to think of Decode As before a dissector preference. I also thought I had a better chance of doing such "GUI things" with the 2.0 release where it can be more understandable.
-----Original Message-----
From: Stig Bjørlykke <stig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Developer support list for Wireshark <wireshark-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sat, Apr 4, 2015 4:55 am
Subject: Re: [Wireshark-dev] enum preferences vs Go Fish