Bob,
OK, I'll get this started from a page developers view. I certainly agree with
your analysis of the Jmol success formula, and I like the Jmol app concept. In
some ways, I'm a mobile device cynic, but my colleague Tom and my
granddaughters are slowly changing this view. That's why I'm trying to make
JSmol model kit iPad functional in a browser.
I think I like your "One idea," but I don't fully understand it.
I'll add this. Tom and I were playing around with the idea of a model based
iBook, and I pretty much gave up on the idea because of the dismal state of
model display in iBooks. It was a lot of work to simply see the "pretty
molecule spin." It would be nice to have a serious (scriptable) model display
window either in an iBook or easily accessible to an iBook reader - e.g.
browser based.
The "easily accessible" in browser format carries a strength that IN an iBook
does not. 1) It would be usable with (as opposed to IN) iBooks and eBooks
across a range of mobile devices. 2) You are not constrained by Apple's rules
and control. I, personally, really don't like the latter issues.
Otis
--
Otis Rothenberger
[email protected]
http://chemagic.com
On Jan 24, 2013, at 10:39 AM, Bob Hanson wrote:
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Robert Hanson <[email protected]>
>> Date: January 24, 2013 4:14:54 PM GMT+02:00
>> To: undisclosed-recipients:;
>> Subject: Jmol iPad app
>>
>> Dear Jmol users,
>>
>> The Jmol iPad app. The obvious next step, right? So, I'd like to start a
>> discussion with Jmol users and Jmol page developers.
>>
>> IF we were to work on an iPad app, what would it take to make it the "killer
>> app" that would equal Jmol as the "killer applet."? What is it that makes
>> Jmol/JSmol unique as an applet/JavaScript library?
>>
>> Some ideas:
>>
>> -- scriptability - One of Jmol's key features is its high-level scripting
>> language that lets both web developers and (knowledgeable) web users
>> interact with it in ways that Jmol developers ourselves haven't
>> conceptualized.
>>
>> -- adaptability - Web page developers can put the applet in a context of
>> their own choosing, with all sorts of interesting content around the applet
>> that makes this particular page for a page visitor a particularly
>> interesting and unique interactive experience.
>>
>> Of these two, the first is probably very easy to implement in a Jmol app.
>> What about the second?
>>
>> My thinking goes like this: There are three groups:
>>
>> -- Jmol code developers (meaning those of us writing the Java code)
>> -- Jmol page developers (those using Jmol for their own creative ends using
>> the code and interfaces developed by the Jmol code developers)
>> -- Jmol users (those who visit the pages created by the Jmol page developers)
>>
>> If you think about it, that second category is what makes Jmol unique. There
>> are programs out there like pyMol and Mercury, and others that are created
>> by code developers and used by users. But what other programs involve the
>> middle category? I think of Adobe Flash as something like that. Is that it?
>> Jmol is more like Flash than it is like pyMol? Jmol provides the technology
>> that page developers can use to design a unique experience for their page's
>> visitors. This is what makes Jmol quite different from, say, a JavaScript
>> library that allows one to pop up a 3D model on a page and pretty much
>> leaves it at that. That's what the combination of controls and high-level
>> scripting gets us. Right?
>>
>> It seems to me, that if a "Jmol app" were to be valuable, it would still
>> involve this triad of involvement. Wouldn't it be a waste of time to develop
>> "just another molecule viewer" even if it is Jmol? That would be more like
>> morphing the Jmol application into an iPad app, not the Jmol applet.
>>
>> But how would we maintain that middle tier?
>>
>> One idea: The "Jmol app" by itself does little. But what it does do is
>> interact with a cloud-based server (or perhaps any web site?) to pull
>> context down and surround the viewer window with that context. So what a
>> "Jmol context developer" (I can't think of the analogy in terms of iPad
>> apps, because I don't think there is this category yet) would do would be to
>> develop an actual web page with an actual computer using a standard browser
>> and then through some sort of registered process upload, perhaps, a link to
>> that page along with a thumbnail image and a set of searchable keywords or
>> abstract. While that page could be viewed on the browser, some version of it
>> could also be viewed within the Jmol app. When the Jmol app is opened, it
>> would be like getting an index to all the Jmol pages in existence -- those
>> adapted to this iPad idea. The user would select the [what? -- applet?
>> (does sound about right...)] of choice and off they go. That "applet" would
>> pull context from the web, surround the Jmol window with that context, and
>> there you have it.
>>
>> What do you think? Feedback? Suggestions?
>>
>> Bob
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Robert M. Hanson
>> Larson-Anderson Professor of Chemistry
>> Chair, Chemistry Department
>> St. Olaf College
>> Northfield, MN
>> http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr
>>
>>
>> If nature does not answer first what we want,
>> it is better to take what answer we get.
>>
>> -- Josiah Willard Gibbs, Lecture XXX, Monday, February 5, 1900
>>
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