User Interface

Main Frame Window

Reports. This page presents the overview, detailed interpretation, and hex dump reports.

Summary. This page presents summary information about the current trace file.

Global Toolbar and Main Menu

Menu Bar

Configure - Preferences

Global Toolbar

Figure 1

Figure 1. The Global Toolbar

Functions available via the Global Toolbar and Menu Bar are:

File Operations

Open, Close, and Save Trace Files
Print Selected Reports
Exit the Program*

Configuration Options

Manage Aliases, Reports, and Filters
Export/Import Tools
Update Preferences
Edit QuickFilter

Online Help*

View General Help
View About Dialog

* These features are available only via the main menu bar, not via the Global Toolbar.

Configuration Dialog Window

In addition, the Global Toolbar contains the components described in Table 1.

Control	Action/Name	Description
	Select Filter	This combo box allows the user to select a data filter from among a list of all available data filters. Once selected, the filter is immediately applied to the current data set, such that only trace records which meet the criteria specified by the filter are included in the resulting report. The first entry in the list, No Filter, turns data filtering off and restores the full data set to the Overview Report.
see Figure 1	Status Message Area	Used to provide feedback to the user in the form of status messages and error notifications. Status message are displayed in blue, error messages in red.
	Abort Current Job	This button is only available when a job is running which can be aborted, such as a data filter or a print job. Otherwise, it is disabled and grayed out. Pressing this button while a job is running will cause the currently running job to be aborted, without requesting confirmation.
	Job Progress Monitor	This control measures the progress of the currently running job. Typically, this will involve a visual cue (the box gradually filling in with blue from left to right) to measure percent completeness, and a textual cue. The format of the latter is appropriate to the type of job currently running.

Table 1. Global Toolbar components

Configuration Dialog Window

This secondary window presents the user with an interface to create, change, and delete the configurable tools which are available for use with the program. This window is modal to the Main Frame Window, meaning that, once displayed, it must explicitly be dismissed before the Main Frame Window can be accessed again.

The notebook paradigm is repeated in this window. There are tabbed notebook pages for the following topics:

Aliases

This page allows the user to create, change, and delete symbolic name aliases for IP addresses, MAC addresses, and MAC manufacturer IDs.

Columns

Overview Report

Filters

This page allows the user to create, change, and delete data filters using data from any available protocol, a list of user functions, and a straightforward logical expression syntax.

The Configuration Dialog Window has a Status Message Area along its bottom edge, similar to the Status Message Area in the Global Toolbar of the Main Frame Window. This component is used to provide feedback to the user in the form of status messages and error notifications. Status message are displayed in blue, error messages in red.

Special Keyboard Assignments

In addition to the obvious data entry uses of the keyboard, the Trace Analyzer reserves several keyboard keys for the special purposes, as follows:

<F1> Displays context sensitive help for the component which currently has input focus
<F3> Navigates row selection backward one record in the Overview Report table view
<F4> Navigates row selection forward one record in the Overview Report table view
<Ctrl+Insert> and <Ctrl+C> Either combination will copy the contents of the currently selected data cell, if any, in the Overview Report table to the system clipboard, when the table has input focus

About Mouse Operations

When describing mouse click or drag operations, this document is intentionally vague regarding which mouse button to use. Because the Trace Analyzer is built on Java, it runs on various platforms, potentially with a variety of pointing devices. Different operating systems may respond to the same mouse button action in different ways. Therefore, mouse operations are referred to generically as clicking, double clicking, or dragging. It is left as an exercise for the user to determine which mouse button operation best maps into these generic actions on the installed platform.