Tools for scanning/managing WiFi

[Chris Green]

Is there anything better than Network Manager for checking for WiFi
signals?

Network Manager is fine for when I'm at home where the laptop and tablet
simply connect to the home router but as soon as there's any
difficulty deciding what to connect to it's pretty useless:-

    There's no control over [re-]scanning so you can't move to
    different positions and request a re-scan to see if there are
    different WiFi signals and/or signal strength has changed.

    The signal strength indication is no help in optimising the signal,
    one needs a more accurate level indicator to tell if moving this way
    or that improves the signal.

    There's no indication of the type of encryption on signals which
    have encryption keys.  This is a real killer sometimes when somoene
    knows the password/key but not what *type* of key it is.  I had this
    problem at my wife's office recently.  Windows XP reports the
    encryption type so surely Linux should be able to.


Are there any tools specifically for scanning/characterising WiFi
signals and/or are there any replacements for Network Manager that make
handling WiFi connections easier?


-- 
Chris Green