Re: Infrastructure for plugins (including Lua-based ones) to add their own menus

[Tony Trinh <tony19 () gmail com>]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 10:06 AM, Richard Sharpe <
realrichardsharpe () gmail com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> In a previous email I raised the issue of givin Lua plugins the
> ability to declare their own menus, not just menu items on existing
> menus. Indeed, I would like to go further and to expose facilities for
> plugins to add items to other places, like the Filter bar and the
> popup menus.


> However, one additional discussion that I think it is important to
> have has occurred to me.
>
> It seems to me that there are two approaches that can be taken with
> respect to allowing plugins to add menus:
>
> 1. A free-for-all, where each plugin can establish its own menu. This
> keeps each plugin separate, but could get a bit ugly.
It would be simple to modify the current code to allow Lua to insert
anywhere in the menu bar, but I agree that one of the reasons this
restriction is in place is likely to prevent menu madness (the "ugliness"
you mention) and possible user confusion. Imagine 20 Lua plugins that
created their own top-level menus.


> 2. A single menu for plugins, with each plugin getting its own section.
Hmm. I don't understand the advantage of this approach over the current
solution. Can you clarify with an example?

The common goal for these approaches seem to be the separation of each
plugin's menus. Menu grouping is already possible with the current release
of Wireshark, as shown below.

Lua:
    register_menu('PluginA/foo1', foo1_action, MENU_TOOLS_UNSORTED)
    register_menu('PluginA/bar1', bar1_action, MENU_TOOLS_UNSORTED)

    -- note the dash is used for menu separator
    register_menu('-/PluginB/foo2', foo2_action, MENU_TOOLS_UNSORTED)
    register_menu('PluginB/bar2', bar2_action, MENU_TOOLS_UNSORTED)

Menu result:
Tools
 |-- PluginA
  |-- foo1
  \-- bar1
        ------------------------ (menu separator)
|-- PluginB
 \-- foo2
\-- bar2

Another undocumented feature (as of 1.7.0) is keyboard shortcuts (e.g.,
shortcut on "f" with "PluginA/_foo").

I think it would be nice to add more control over menu items, including the
following

   - edit menu text/icon
   - create toggle menu
   - disable menu
   - hide/remove menu
   - add menu after init (it's currently prevented, and IMO, there's no
   reason to do so)

These additions might call for a new "Menu" [meta]class.

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