VMD-L Mailing List

From: Axel Kohlmeyer (akohlmey_at_gmail.com)
Date: Tue Apr 12 2011 - 10:38:19 CDT

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.