Feature Requests item #3485099, was opened at 2012-02-06 13:58 Message generated for change (Comment added) made by buckyb You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=379136&aid=3485099&group_id=23629
Please note that this message will contain a full copy of the comment thread, including the initial issue submission, for this request, not just the latest update. Category: Interface Improvements Group: None Status: Open Priority: 5 Private: No Submitted By: Andriy Zhugayevych (azh4) Assigned to: Bob Hanson (hansonr) Summary: save settings on exit Initial Comment: Most of GUI-equipped programs save their settings on exit (e.g. color or rendering scheme). May we have such feature in Jmol application? More specifically two commands need to be implemented: 1) enable/disable "Save settings on exit", 2) "Restore default settings". Additionally it would be convenient to have the fast route to load the frequently used user scripts (for example to change program settings). This feature can be included into existing "Open" command by adding the link to some fixed user folder where the user can keep its scripts. However I would add additional button. This feature would mimic Style Manager in Mercury program. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Ted Cohen (buckyb) Date: 2012-02-07 11:56 Message: We just went through a process to select a chemical visualization tool. The very thing that Andriy describes as a weakness in Jmol, was the reason that we selected it. If I can explain using a poor metaphor, Jmol is like a cobler kit and using it, you can build any size shoe that you want. Andriy is saying I wear size 9 shoes and so do a lot of other people so Jmol should come prebuilt for size 9. I gave two examples that his simplistic request did not address (multiple Jmol users on one computer and multiple Jmol consuming applications on one computer). I feel that in order to give additional consideration to the feature request Andriy needs to propose a solution that addresses the issues that I raised as well as the implicit issue that Jonathan raised which is that his list won't satisfy all users of Jmol. I don't think anyone is opposed in concept to the request. It is more "how can this request be implemented in a general way that works for all Jmol users". It is hard to give it enthusiastic support until that becomes clear. To address some of Anriy's recent points. He does not like the "show state" solution because it is file dependant. If we don't save state in files between executions of Jmol, where do we save it? He also objects to the 5 clicks to load a script but the answer to that, I thought was implicit. You build your own app, around Jmol. You don't start Jmol itself but rather your own app which invokes Jmol and feeds it the state that you saved upon last exit. When Jmol exits again, your app grab the current state and stores it. No extra clicks are required, just some programming time to build your shoe, using the cobler kit provided by Jmol, just the way you want it. In our selection process, we saw lots of applications for visualizing chemical models but we passed on them because we could not customize them and we could not include them in our own application. If a prebuilt viewer that saves and restores state is needed, they exist but I would guess that Andriy does not go that direction because Jmol provides more "power". Jmols power comes from the fact that it does not rope you into any one predefined way that things must be done. Jmol gives you the power to have the things the way that you want them instead of the way that someone else wants them, but it comes with the price tag that you have to roll up your sleeves and do some of the work yourself which in this case is to build the wrapper to save and restore, just what you want, just where you want it, using the tools already provided. If there is any state element that can't be saved or restored with current tools, based on what I have seen, Bob would have it in the next release of Jmol. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Andriy Zhugayevych (azh4) Date: 2012-02-07 10:23 Message: Thank you, set_defaultloadscript and any other solutions based on loading a script with starting Jmol application, together with the mentioned previously macro/script possibilities do not provide the solution to the posted problem: save current settings on exit. They just provide the way around the problem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Angel Herraez (aherraez) Date: 2012-02-07 10:00 Message: Hi Andriy Another hint: http://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/docs/#set_defaultloadscript If the macro is not working, we should wrk on it. I haven't used it lately but it did work; maybe the instructions are not good. Could you please follow this up and give details on the jmol-developers or jmol-users email lists? That is easier to discuss than thi bug tracking system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Andriy Zhugayevych (azh4) Date: 2012-02-07 09:31 Message: Thank you for suggestions. 1) Macro solution looks fine, but the described on http://wiki.jmol.org/index.php/Macro algorithm does not work for me: when I press Macros menu nothing happens (I have Jmol 12.2 on Windows 7). 2) Script solution looks also fine, but to load a script from $HOME/.jmol directory I need at least 5 clicks. 3) Save state solution is file-dependent. Bottom line: in the view of "Interface Improvements" Category the above solutions are unsatisfactory. I remind my main point: most of GUI-equipped programs handle user settings in a multiuser environment in a user-friendly way. And I don't see the reason why Jmol application must stand as an exclusion. Jmol is not "as is" program but one of the leading (and currently the most universal) tool for visualizing molecular structures. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Ted Cohen (buckyb) Date: 2012-02-07 03:31 Message: Please correct me if I have this wrong, but I thought that the output of the various "show" commands could be saved by the user and then "played back" unchanged to restore the state to what it was. Could one not issue a "show state" command and write the contents to a file when unloading an instance of Jmol and then restoring it on the next load. It seems that there would be a lot of ambiquities for Jmol to try to resolve if Jmol tried to do a "one size fits all" solution. For example, you may have multiple apps that use Jmol on a machine and a user may want to keep a seperate set of preferences for each app. Or there might be several users that share a work station in a lab and each user may want his preferences saved seperately from other users. By writing the save/restore script yourself as Bob suggested in the second comment, you can get exactly what you want using existing features of Jmol. For example you could save state in a different file for each user or for each app if that is what you needed. A few questions that I have: When is the unload callback called? I am hoping that it is the inverse of the onload callback. That is the the onload callback is called last, after everything else is done and that the unload callback would be first, before anything is torn down. Hopefully, that would allow the user to issue a "show state" from the unload callback, get the state and save it somewhere. Secondly, is the unload callback called at all in the standalone version or only in the applet version? I am suspecting that Andriy's request is for the standalone product rather than the applet. Is there a way for a user script to get control on exit in the standalone? In the applet version, could the user store state in the unload callback or is the state already lost by the time the callback is invoked? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Angel Herraez (aherraez) Date: 2012-02-07 00:53 Message: I think this is arguable. DIfferent structures will need totally different "styles", I don't see it clear that any preference will be applicable to everything. Anyway, there is the "macro" feature taht you can use to quickly set your styles. Maybe that suits yor needs. And there is indeed a user fiolder (precisely where thiose macros are put). http://wiki.jmol.org/index.php/Macro ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Bob Hanson (hansonr) Date: 2012-02-06 17:18 Message: That's a tough one. Clearly you can save whatever styles you want if you know a bit of scripting, but you want it to be more accessible than that, I think. The problem is that styles for atoms and bonds, labels, unit cells, and axes are all reset after a model is loaded. They aren't program-session specific. The only exception to that is when you color an element. That one carries over between models. Edit...Preferences allows some of this -- you can set preferences for atoms and bonds at least. So I suppose we could add a few more options to that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Andriy Zhugayevych (azh4) Date: 2012-02-06 17:02 Message: 1) Style/Labels 2) Color/Labels 3) Color/Background 4) Style/Unit cell, Style/Axes 5) Style/Scheme Also I would save "Style/Atoms/Show hydrogens" but this may puzzle unexperienced users. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment By: Jonathan Gutow (gutow) Date: 2012-02-06 14:33 Message: Please make a specific list of what you would like saved. Jmol does save many settings such as window position and such. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can respond by visiting: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=379136&aid=3485099&group_id=23629 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! 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