Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] Should the "export as text" item be in an "Export Human-re

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 04:48:25 -0700
On May 19, 2012, at 4:33 PM, Guy Harris wrote:

> In any case, I've thought about it a bit more, and think it might make sense to have, in the File menu:
> 
> 	Export Packet Dissections
> 		Text...
> 		PostScript...
> 		CSV...
> 		PSML...
> 		PDML...
> 	Export SSL Session Keys...
> 	Export Objects
> 		HTTP...
> 		DICOM...
> 		SMB...
> 
> rather than just "Export" as a top-level menu item - i.e., replace the "Export" top-level menu item with the three items that are currently underneath it, and give the Export->File item a name that indicates that what it exports is the result of dissection.
> 
> They all "export" in the sense that they write out something other than the raw packet data, but they're all *very* different operations (the first group writes out, in non-capture-file formats, the result of packet dissection, whether it's the summary, details, or both, possibly with the raw data dumped in hex/ASCII format for text and PostScript; the second group writes out session keys from the capture; the third group writes out objects transferred over the wire by various protocols).
> 
> The items under "Export Packet Dissections" would have longer descriptions similar to what they have now (I'm too lazy to type those in).

OK, I've checked in a change to do that.

I'll also be splitting "Save As" into:

	File -> Save As - *always* writes out *every* packet, and, if it succeeds, makes the newly-saved file the current file;

	File -> Export Specified Packets (verb subject to discussion) - *can* write out every packet, but offers the choices that "Save As" currently offers for selecting packets, and *never* makes the newly-saved file the current file;

which may clear up one of the issues from bug 6640.

(I've already changed "Save" so that, if you've edited the comments in a non-temporary file, it just saves on top of the existing file - using "safe save", i.e. "write to a new file and then rename the new file on top of the old file", as that's required by the way we work, and is *also* what should be done, so that writing the file out doesn't permanently destroy data if it fails in the middle.)