Eric Martz wrote:
At 5/5/06, you wrote:
It's probably time I told people about some of the prototype Jmol.js
niceties in
<http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr/jmol/test/proto/Jmol-new.js>
Dear Bob,
This all looks extremely useful. At last there is a mechanism to keep
track of when the applet has completed a task! And better yet, whether
it completed the task successfully.
1. Is there any way to tell when the applet is initially loaded and
ready for the first script? My inability to do this caused lots of head
scratching when I began designing FirstGlance.
This needs experimentation on a variety of platforms.
2. Is there any way to tell when the Protein Data Bank does not supply
the PDB file requested in a load command? FirstGlance presently just
leaves a blank applet (white, Jmol frank disappears), a very ungraceful
failure.
myVar = jmolScriptWait("load jmol.js")
The file exist, but the return message is
"ERROR: ScriptException:unrecognized file format | Script line:load
jmol.js"
3. LACK OF JMOL.JS DOCUMENTATION. When I started coding FirstGlance, I
decided not to use jmol.js. This was partly because it didn't support
some functions I needed, but mainly because it is undocumented and I was
afraid to use it. From inspection of the contents of jmol.js, it appears
to do some sort of browser/java version testing, but I cannot tell what
this is supposed to accomplish. Until someone documents the situations
this is supposed to handle and what it is attempting to do, I will
continue to be reluctant to use jmol.js for FirstGlance. I want to avoid
a situation where a (common) client situation that I haven't tested
causes an unanticipated failure mode. For example, no java in Windows,
or a very old version of java. Right now, FirstGlance would fail to work
at all, or to work correctly, without any explicit error messages. That
is certainly not optimal. But I can't tell whether jmol.js would do better.
You have to give Miguel credit for writing a VERY GOOD browser testing
sequence into Jmol.js. Initially I felt the same as you -- too much of
a black box. After using Jmol.js with touches of modification here and
there, I can tell you that it is SUPERB. I don't think I'll ever write
any page using Jmol without it now. I think you should sit down, take
the time to understand it, and use it.
No documentation will ever provide what you are asking for, I think --
a description of HOW it works. I'm not sure what more you could want
than http://jmol.sourceforge.net/jslibrary/
One bit of code in jmol.js that particularly concerns me (and is
inscrutable to me) is this:
windowsClassId: "clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93",
windowsCabUrl:
"http://java.sun.com/update/1.5.0/jinstall-1_5_0_07-windows-i586.cab";,
I wish someone would explain to me what this is designed to do, and how
I could test it.
Miguel can do that.
More generally, I think we need thorough on-line documentation, in one
place, on what jmol.js is designed to do, how to use the functions in
it, etc.
Is it possible you haven't seen http://jmol.sourceforge.net/jslibrary/
?
Bob
--
Robert M. Hanson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], 507-646-3107
Professor of Chemistry, St. Olaf College
1520 St. Olaf Ave., Northfield, MN 55057
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
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