I was going to download 1.12.2 64bit for OS X and I noticed the pretty little note that read "OS X users might want to try the development release below"...so I did. The interface is certainly polished and more OS X'y (sounds like OS Sexy when I saw it out load...HA!). Anyway - I can't find a way to open two captures for viewing simultaneously. I've looked through the Wiki and the mailing lists but I didn't see anything that addressed the issue. Is this a known limitation of the QT interface on OS X? I did grab the 64bit version and I do have a retina display - but I'm not sure that information is relevant to my question. The new interface is snazzy and all, but I'll be back on the X11 boat for now because I need the ability to view multiple captures simultaneously. Thanks for the great work! asked 15 Dec '14, 06:50  GeonJay |
2 Answers:
Wireshark assumes that each process has one and only one main window. This isn't a problem on Windows or X11 since you can just create another process. It is a problem when run as an OS X application bundle, as you've discovered. Adding multiple main windows per process would be a huge development effort and I'm not sure if or when it will be done. In the mean time you can work around the problem using answered 15 Dec '14, 09:09  Gerald Combs ♦♦ |
Wireshark can only load one file at a time (always has, so this is not specific to the QT build), so you'll have to start multiple instances to display more than one file. I'm not familiar with OSX, but I guess you should be able to position two Wireshark instances next to each other. answered 15 Dec '14, 06:55  Jasper ♦♦ |
Thanks for the quick response. I don't see a way (an easy way) to force multiple instances with the new version. With all previous versions Wireshark would automatically open captures in new windows - automatically generating a second instance. I can force a second instance to launch by running "wireshark" from the CLI - but this is rather clunky and makes it more work to open captures from VMs that I have running in the background. There isn't an "Open new window" in the File menu, nor do I see an open in the Preferences to force new instances/windows.
You might want to add a bug report at http://bugs.wireshark.org for this, and either declare it a bug or feature request ;-)
Feature request 10778 added. Thanks Jasper!