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Change selected packet colors.

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I see how to change the colors of foreground (characters) & background in a captured trace, but when I select a packet it's white on light green and barely readable. It doesn't matter which pre-selected packet coloring is applied. (I.E. Bad TCP is Red on Black but when selected it's white on light green.)

How do I change the colors of a selected packet to something easier to see? (Such as black on light green?)

asked 13 Apr '12, 10:38

PReinie's gravatar image

PReinie
15224
accept rate: 0%


One Answer:

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When I select a packet in Wireshark, on any computer that I have access to, the selected packet is always white on dark blue, regardless of what color filters are in place. I can't find anywhere--in Wireshark--to change the color of selected packets. The only way I was finally able to change the color of selected packets was to change the Windows color scheme.

So, is it possible that your selected packets are white on light green because you've changed the Windows system colors? If so, changing the Windows color scheme might be the only way to get a more readable display.

answered 13 Apr '12, 21:18

Jim%20Aragon's gravatar image

Jim Aragon
7.2k733118
accept rate: 24%

Thanks, Jim, but I'm on a Mac.

For all the wonderful graphics things Macs can do, it simply amazes me that as near as I can tell you can't pick your own colors for such simple things as window borders, and with the latest Mac release, they even got rid of the scroll elevator arrows!

So, I have no color scheme to pick from. On other versions of Mac OS the colors were different. But maybe it was a different release of Wireshark. I don't have the resources (including time) to tell.

I too couldn't find anywhere to change the selected text colors, which is why I posted the question.

Phil

(14 Apr '12, 13:52) PReinie

@PReinie, The selected-item color on my iMac is not the same as yours (it's a grayish blue BG with white FG). I could be wrong, but I think this color might actually be controlled by GTK color themes and not OSX. I'd look into gtkrc, and see a similar Ubuntu question.

(14 Apr '12, 15:15) helloworld

Which file & element do I change? I tried changing one but wireshark reloaded another version. Maybe I have to change permissions on the file (but which file)?

A work-around is to select a packet (get white characters on light green) then click once with the mouse in the lowest panel (the expanded content of the selected packet) the focus goes to that point, and the selected line (packet) remains selected but changes to white on a darker gray, which is easily visible. It's a work-around that works. (This doesn't count as answering my own question.)

(14 Apr '12, 23:20) PReinie

BTW, what is this voting thing? Where do I do it?

(14 Apr '12, 23:22) PReinie

The file is named "gtkrc". If you installed GTK through Macports, its location is in /opt/local/share somewhere. Use the find command to locate it. I think the property you need is named "selected_bg_color" (based on the question I had linked to in my last comment...take a look).

(14 Apr '12, 23:38) helloworld

You can vote by clicking the "thumbs up"/"thumbs down" icon in the top left corner of a question/answer. You can also upvote a comment by clicking the "thumbs up" in the bottom right corner of the comment. Click the vote button again to undo, but you're only allowed to "unvote" for a short period after the vote occurred (I think comments have 60 minutes).

(14 Apr '12, 23:46) helloworld

Actually, the unvote period applies only to votes on questions and answers (it's currently set to 1 day). You can unvote comments anytime.

(15 Apr '12, 11:38) helloworld
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