[homer11] Killer features homer 11 UI could have

[gedia]

Hello,

I'm glad to see homer 11 has introduced several game-changing features, such as IP exclusion from pcap export.

To further build on that, I'd like to suggest a couple more which I believe would greatly improve usability. Up until homer 7, I'd often find myself exporting pcaps and opening them using sngrep for these reasons/features:

• The ability to navigate the call flow using the keyboard.
  • Selecting a SIP message using arrow keys
  • Showing a preview of the selected message
• The ability to compare SIP messages side-by-side in a diff

Here's my recommendation for a UI that would accomplish these, although I suspect it might be a tall order:

• When in call flow, (up/down) arrow keys can be used to highlight one message at a time. Highlight could be already placed at the message the user clicked on the search results table to bring up the call flow itself.
  • By highlight, I mean the entire row, pretty much like a mouse-over will highlight it now. Maybe a bit higher contrast?
• Pressing space does two things:
  • Selects the highlighted message
  • If this is the first message to be selected in the flow, then open a message preview, not in a floating window, but in a docked area taking up, say 1/3 of the call-flow view at the bottom. Ensure the visible part of the call-flow (now 2/3 of the window size) includes the selected message.
  • With one message selected, one is still able to navigate the flow using arrow keys. If the navigate to another msg and select it (again using space), then the preview area is split in the middle, showing:
    • The message one selected first on the left side
    • The message one selected second on the left side
    • Diff highlighting is applied to show any differences
    • The order is always determined by user selection, not any message timestamps
    • Block arrow key navigation in this state
• Pressing space again will de-select a message:
  • When deselecting in diff mode (vertically split preview), just close the pane which showed the preview of the now deselected message
  • When deselection in preview mode, close the preview panel altogether.
• Bringing up the preview pane should additionally be possible without selecting a message. Selection of a message is just a shortcut to make the preview appear, and deselection a shortcut to make it disappear. But additionally:
  • Introduce an icon or toggle for the preview pane, for example next to the "Filters" button.
  • When enabled, the preview pane is always visible
  • When enabled, navigating with the arrow keys will show the currently highlighted message, even without selecting it (using space)
  • Selecting a message in this state does nothing (from a UI perspective)
  • Selecting/Deselecting a second message in this state shows/hides the diff between the two selected messages, as before
  • Deselecting the only selected message in this state does nothing (from a UI perspective)
• Additional convenient option: another toggle which when enabled
  • will enforce "compact" view of messages whenever the preview pane is visible (regardless of how it was made visible)
  • will automatically respect the "compact" setting in the filters menu when the preview pane is hidden

Hope this makes sense to more people than just myself. Thank you for your ongoing work on this project!

[adubovikov]

Hello George,

Wow - thank you for putting this together! The walkthrough is really clear, and we love that you're thinking about Homer in the same way many of us used sngrep. Keyboard navigation, a docked preview, and side-by-side diffs would be a fantastic upgrade to the call flow.

It's genuinely exciting to see so much interest in Homer 11, and we'd love to see community ideas like this land in the project. This is a bigger UI piece, so even a first step (arrow keys in the flow, or a simple preview pane) would be a great start - PRs are always welcome!

Really appreciate you taking the time to write all this up. Hope others find it useful too!