forked from osmocom/wireshark
1dc06a2681
Start mentioning Qt. Update and add HIG links. Change-Id: Iac984045b03a96862981d58ff63c9ee6bcdbbce8 Reviewed-on: https://code.wireshark.org/review/127 Tested-by: Wireshark Buildbot <buildbot-no-reply@wireshark.org> Reviewed-by: Gerald Combs <gerald@wireshark.org>
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6.9 KiB
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211 lines
6.9 KiB
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<!-- WSDG Chapter User Interface -->
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[[ChapterUserInterface]]
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== User Interface
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[[ChUIIntro]]
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=== Introduction
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Wireshark can be logically separated into the backend (dissecting protocols,
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file loading and saving, capturing, etc.) and the frontend (the user interface).
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The following frontends are currently maintained by the Wireshark
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development team:
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* Wireshark, GTK 2.x based
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* Wireshark, GTK 3.x based (Wireshark 1.10 and newer)
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* Wireshark, Qt based (Wireshark 1.11 and newer)
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* TShark, console based
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There are other Wireshark frontends which are not developed nor maintained by
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the Wireshark development team:
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* Packetyzer (Win32 native interface, written in Delphi and released
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under the GPL, see: http://www.paglo.com/opensource/packetyzer[])
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* hethereal (web based frontend, not actively maintained and not
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finished)
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This chapter is focused on the Wireshark frontend, and especially on
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the GTK interface.
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[[ChUIGTK]]
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=== The GTK library
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.We're switching to Qt
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[NOTE]
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====
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This chapter describes the state of our stable release, which is based on GTK+.
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A major effort is underway to migrate Wireshark to Qt. If you would like to add
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a new interface feature you should use it and not GTK+.
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====
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Wireshark is based on the GTK toolkit. See http://www.gtk.org[] for details.
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GTK is designed to hide the details of the underlying GUI in a platform
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independent way. As GTK is intended to be a multiplatform tool, there are some
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drawbacks, as the result is a somewhat "non native" look and feel.
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GTK is available for many different platforms including, but not limited to:
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Unix/Linux, Mac OS X and Win32. It's the foundation of the famous GNOME desktop,
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so the future development of GTK should be certain. GTK is implemented in plain
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C (as is Wireshark itself), and available under the LGPL (Lesser General Public
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License), making it free to used by commercial and noncommercial applications.
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There are other similar toolkits like wxWidgets which could also be used for
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Wireshark. There's no "one and only" reason for or against any of these
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toolkits. However, the decision towards GTK was made a long time ago :-)
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As of 2013 there are two major GTK versions available:
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[[ChUIGTK2x]]
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==== GTK Version 2.x
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GTK 2.x depends on the following libraries:
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* GObject (Object library. Basis for GTK and others)
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* GLib (A general-purpose utility library, not specific to graphical user
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interfaces. GLib provides many useful data types, macros, type conversions,
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string utilities, file utilities, a main loop abstraction, and so on.)
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* Pango (Pango is a library for internationalized text handling. It centers
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around the PangoLayout object, representing a paragraph of text. Pango
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provides the engine for GtkTextView, GtkLabel, GtkEntry, and other widgets
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that display text.)
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* ATK (ATK is the Accessibility Toolkit. It provides a set of generic interfaces
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allowing accessibility technologies to interact with a graphical user
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interface. For example, a screen reader uses ATK to discover the text in an
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interface and read it to blind users. GTK+ widgets have built-in support for
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accessibility using the ATK framework.)
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* GdkPixbuf (This is a small library which allows you to create GdkPixbuf
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("pixel buffer") objects from image data or image files. Use a
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GdkPixbuf in combination with GtkImage to display images.)
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* GDK (GDK is the abstraction layer that allows GTK+ to support multiple
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windowing systems. GDK provides drawing and window system facilities on X11,
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Windows, and the Linux framebuffer device.)
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[[ChUIGTK3x]]
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==== GTK Version 3.x
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Wireshark (as of version 1.10) has been ported to use the GTK3 library.
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GTK 3.x depends on the following libraries:
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(See GTK 2.x)
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[[ChUIGTKCompat]]
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==== Compatibility GTK versions
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The GTK library itself defines some values which makes it easy to distinguish
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between the versions, e.g. +GTK_MAJOR_VERSION+ and +GTK_MINOR_VERSION+ will be
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set to the GTK version at compile time inside the gtkversion.h header.
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[[ChUIGTKWeb]]
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==== GTK resources on the web
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You can find several resources about GTK.
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First of all, have a look at http://www.gtk.org[]. This
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will be the first place to look at. If you want to develop GTK related
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things for Wireshark, the most important place might be the GTK API
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documentation at http://library.gnome.org/devel/gtk/stable/[].
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Several mailing lists are available about GTK development, see
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http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo[], the gtk-app-devel-list may be your
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friend.
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As it's often done wrong: You should post a mail to *help* the developers
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there instead of only complaining. Posting such a thing like "I don't like
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your dialog, it looks ugly" won't be of much help. You might think about
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what you dislike and describe why you dislike it and provide a suggestion
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for a better way.
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[[ChUIGUIDocs]]
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=== GUI Reference documents
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Although the GUI development of Wireshark is platform independent, the
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Wireshark development team tries to
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follow the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) where appropriate.
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This is the case, because both GNOME and Wireshark are based on the GTK+
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toolkit and the GNOME HIG is excellently written and easy to understand.
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For further reference, see the following documents:
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* Android Design:
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http://developer.android.com/design/index.html[] (Wireshark doesn't have a
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mobile frontend but there is still useful information here)
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* GNOME Human Interface Guidelines:
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http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/[]
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* The KDE Usability/HIG project:
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http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Usability/HIG[]
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* OS X Human Interface Guidelines:
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https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Intro/Intro.html[]
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* Design apps for the Windows desktop:
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http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa511258.aspx[]
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[[ChUIGTKDialogs]]
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=== Adding/Extending Dialogs
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This is usually the main area for contributing new user interface features.
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XXX: add the various functions from gtk/dlg_utils.h
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[[ChUIGTKWidgetNamings]]
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=== Widget naming
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It seems to be common sense to name the widgets with some
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descriptive trailing characters, like:
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* xy_lb = gtk_label_new();
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* xy_cb = gtk_checkbox_new();
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* XXX: add more examples
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However, this schema isn't used at all places inside the code.
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[[ChUIGTKPitfalls]]
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=== Common GTK programming pitfalls
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There are some common pitfalls in GTK programming.
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[[ChUIGTKShowAll]]
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==== Usage of gtk_widget_show() / gtk_widget_show_all()
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When a GTK widget is created it will be hidden by default. In order to
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show it, a call to gtk_widget_show() has to be done.
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It isn't necessary to do this for each and every widget created. A call
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to gtk_widget_show_all() on the parent of all the widgets in question
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(e.g. a dialog window) can be done, so all of its child widgets will
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be shown too.
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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<!-- End of WSDG Chapter User Interface -->
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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