VMD-L Mailing List

From: Anssi Nurminen (anssi.nurminen_at_tut.fi)
Date: Tue Apr 12 2011 - 11:21:56 CDT

A good comparison for what I'm working on is the "Analysis/RMSD
Trajectory Tool" Plugin. I'm hoping to do some calculations across
trajectories and plot them possibly into a png-image file, if I cannot
find a suitable heatmap-plotter.

Typing "myplugin_tk" into the vmd console just opens my plugin's
unupdated GUI.

This is my first project with Tk/Tcl. Separating the plugin into a
commandline executable version and a separate GUI might not be a bad
idea. Right now I just want to get the GUI working and having a simple,
fast way to get the changes updated would be desirable.

BR,
  Anssi Nurminen

On 12.4.2011 18:56, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> 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
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>