VMD-L Mailing List

From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_gmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 12 2011 - 10:56:17 CDT

On Tue, 2011-04-12 at 18:49 +0300, Anssi Nurminen wrote:

anssi,

> Just as "source", "play" has no effect; my plugin does not get updated.
> I'm installing the plugin in vmd.rc using:
> vmd_install_extension myplugin myplugin_tk "Analysis/MyPlugin"
> if that makes any difference.
>
> Is there any way to uninstall it first, before trying to re-source it?

have you tried manually executing myplugin_tk ?

can you please elaborate a bit on what your plugin does?

are you writing a GUI for some existing commands in VMD,
or are you writing a new script and want to have a GUI
to go with it.

in both cases, it is probably best to separate the GUI
part and the compute part into blocks than can be run
individually. this will not only make development easier,
but also allows people to use the text mode version
from their own scripts w/o having to go through the GUI,
which can be very desirable in case of running remotely
or when using bigdcd or something similar.

cheers,
    axel.

>
> BR,
> Anssi Nurminen
>
>
> On 12.4.2011 18:38, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Anssi Nurminen<anssi.nurminen_at_tut.fi> wrote:
> >> John,
> >>
> >> Thanks for the quick response!
> >>
> >> I have a single .tcl file that I'm using for my plugin located in:
> >> VMD/plugins/noarch/tcl/myplugin1.0/myplugin.tcl (Windows)
> >>
> >> typing the command:
> >> "source plugins/noarch/tcl/myplugin1.0/myplugin.tcl"
> >
> > try "play plugins/noarch/tcl/myplugin1.0/myplugin.tcl"
> >
> >
> >> into the vmd console or the Tk console doesn't seem to have any effects. The
> >> command yields no output, and my plugin does not get updated. How should I
> >> use the source command?
> >
> > don't use tkconsole for that. it does a lot of tcl trickery (indeed i
> > learned a lot of
> > tcl tricks from reading its code) and has its own copy of the command
> > interpreter.
> >
> > you are better off with the regular console window.
> >
> > axel.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> BR,
> >> Anssi Nurminen
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 12.4.2011 17:04, John Stone wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 02:14:36PM +0300, Anssi Nurminen wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm new to VMD and I'm developing a Tcl plugin. I'd have a few question
> >>>> about best practises.
> >>>>
> >>>> -Is there a way to vmd_uninstall_extension or to vmd_reload_extension?
> >>>> Currently whenever I make changes I need to restart VMD to be able to
> >>>> get my plugin reloaded (reinstalled).
> >>>
> >>> No, but you can manually "source" the newly modified script file(s)
> >>> and that will have the effect of updating the code on-the-fly.
> >>>
> >>>> -What are the VMD-community pages and how do I access them?
> >>>
> >>> They are pages maintained as a subdirectory of the VMD Public project
> >>> on BioCoRE. You can edit/create such pages, as well as various
> >>> alpha/beta versions of VMD by following the instructions here:
> >>> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/alpha/
> >>>
> >>>> -How do I turn on VMD's debugging mode? should I use it?
> >>>
> >>> If you're not working on modifying the C/C++ code, then there's
> >>> no need to run VMD within a debugger. If you're working on Tcl scripts,
> >>> then you may find the "logfile" command useful.
> >>>
> >>>> -Other helpful tips for debugging Tcl-plugins?
> >>>
> >>> Try and test your procedures individually and be sure you've exercised
> >>> entire range of input parameters. Since Tcl is interpreted at run-time,
> >>> it is possible to have errors in a script and not realize it until
> >>> a particular combination of parameters trigger a particular section of
> >>> code to be run that isn't usually exercised.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> John Stone
> >>> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> 

-- 
Dr. Axel Kohlmeyer
akohlmey_at_gmail.com http://goo.gl/1wk0
Institute for Computational Molecular Science
Temple University, Philadelphia PA, USA.