Context Help System for Zenmap Profile Editor Proposal

[Jurand Nogiec]

Context Help System for Zenmap Profile Editor
Jurand Nogiec
www.jurand.net

This proposal is available at my wiki-site at
http://jurandn.wikidot.com/context-help-proposal .

I. Current Profile Editor
As of now, the profile editor has different tabs such as Profile, Scan,
Ping, Target, etc. which outline all the different options available.
For instance, under Scan tab, we have such options as which TCP scan,
timing, Idle Scan, IPv6 support, and such. This profile builds a command
using checkboxes and textfields to specify options and settings for
command line input.

II. Problem
There are so many options that newbies to the software will not know
head from tail regarding this, even with this profile builder. There are
so many option names and attributes that it does not really make sense.
It is also a problem to the expert user because the user may not even
know which names map to which classic nmap command line options. It
makes the profile builder a direct mapping to all possible nmap options,
without very much help with description to what each checkbox and field
actually does for the user.
I have a way to make it even better, so that Zenmap can come closer to
realizing the goal of being intuitive to newbies and useful even for the
expert level user.

III. Proposal Overview
In response to the problem, here is the solution proposal. Parts of the
implementation ideas are displayed in the attached screenshot.

I propose to add a Help textbox next to all of the tabs. In this textbox
would be description of the currently in-focus attribute in a short 1-3
sentence summary, as well as the example input for the attribute. When a
user selects a different option, the Help text changes automatically
(I.e. in the screenshot, you see that when "Use decoys to hide identity"
attribute is in focus, the corresponding screen shows the small summary
and the corresponding input for that option.) Next to each attribute,
its nmap options are listed (I.e. -D for decoy) This Help system is
usable for user because when one is focusing in on a field, at the same
time one can read the short documentation and decide what to do. One
thing to note is that these summaries do not mean to replace the current
refguide.xml or attempt to recreate it. Rather, it is a short high-level
summary of what attributes do that should change very little in future
nmap versions.

IV. Implementation
As far as implementation goes, the Help texts must be compiled from the
refguide.xml, extracting 1-3 sentence summaries and the desired input
variables. The help text will be stored inside of a Help.py type of
file, with the different texts having corresponding names that are
activated when user focuses on one of the options.

V. Requirements
    * The system must currently modify only the profile editor.
    * The system must show the help for the currently focused option.
    * The system must not try to replace the currently documentation
entirely.
    * The system must show a description and example input for each option.
    * The system profile editor must show the nmap options next to each
attribute.

VI. Feedback
If you have comments, concerns, or questions regarding this proposal,
please let me know. I am going to start implementing this mid-week
(around July 16-17) so please give me any feedback rather quickly so
that I may consider it before I start implementation work.




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[David Fifield]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 07:08:54PM -0500, Jurand wrote:
> Context Help System for Zenmap Profile Editor
> Jurand Nogiec
> www.jurand.net
>
> This proposal is available at my wiki-site at
> http://jurandn.wikidot.com/context-help-proposal .

This proposal could really use some comments from Nmap/Zenmap beginners.
That's a prime target of the proposal. It's hard for us developers to
assume the point of view of a beginner. When you tried Zenmap, what was
confusing and what would have helped?

David Fifield

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