VMD-L Mailing List

From: Pawel Kedzierski (pawel.kedzierski_at_pwr.edu.pl)
Date: Tue Mar 31 2015 - 04:09:21 CDT

Dear all,
I apologize for misinformation but the actual fix to the Windows vmd.rc
file which I tested was:

cd "$::env(USERPROFILE)"

I use Windows only occasionally and I have proposed the fix from memory,
forgetting that I had to convert the %USERPROFILE% env variable to Tcl
syntax.
It could be combined with Ajasja idea (below) so the same vmdrc file
could be distributed for all systems.
Greetings,
Paweł Kędzierski

W dniu 25.03.2015 o 11:03, Ajasja Ljubetič pisze:
> Hi!
>
> One could argue that people using VMD should know at least the basics
> of using a computer.
> (But then perhaps by the same argument one could say that people using
> VMD should know how to use linux, which would have stopped many people
> (including me) from getting started with VMD).
>
> So I agree that it's advantageous for VMD to be accessible to the
> widest possible audience.
> In fact you would not need a separate version of .vmdrc (which could
> complicate the build process)
>
> just using:
>
> if {$tcl_platform(platform) == "windows"} {
> cd %USERPROFILE% }
>
> should do the trick.
>
> Best regards,
> Ajasja Ljubetič
>
>
>
> On 25 March 2015 at 10:33, Pawel Kedzierski
> <pawel.kedzierski_at_pwr.edu.pl <mailto:pawel.kedzierski_at_pwr.edu.pl>> wrote:
>
> W dniu 25.03.2015 o 10:12, Ashar Malik pisze:
>>
>> If the install path is changed during setup ... And the
>> installation done somewhere else, the rights issue does not come up.
>>
> Yes, provided that the user knows a priori he or she needs to
> workaround a problem. Most do default install.
> And even then it shouldn't hurt to start in user folder by default
> - changing this is easy for those more experienced users and
> without the permission issue.
> The proposed change will benefit all beginners.
> Pawel
>
>
>> On Mar 25, 2015 10:06 PM, "Pawel Kedzierski"
>> <pawel.kedzierski_at_pwr.edu.pl
>> <mailto:pawel.kedzierski_at_pwr.edu.pl>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear VMD developers and users,
>>
>> I see on the vmd-l list and among my students that the
>> default settings of VMD on Windows OS are troublesome for
>> many users. The problem is that the working folder of VMD is
>> its install folder (within "Program Files" or "Program Files
>> (x86)") which is guarded by the OS. If one tries to save a
>> file there, it is saved in hidden user folder and while it
>> shows up in Explorer, the VMD plugins are not able to find it.
>>
>> Many times a "solution" found on the web and on vmd-l list is
>> an advice to run VMD as administrator, which is a bad idea.
>>
>> I have tested that appending a single line to the end of
>> vmd.rc in the VMD installation prevents such problems, and it
>> seems to me a general way:
>>
>> cd %USERPROFILE%
>>
>> However, for non-power users of Windows, editing the global
>> vmd.rc file is not trivial:
>> * the file is guarded by the OS too, due to location in
>> system folder.
>> * as the file has Unix format, Notepad will concatenate all
>> lines effectively destroying it;
>>
>> For users, the simplest solution may be to run Wordpad as
>> administrator to make this change, but still this tend to be
>> confusing one must know how to "show all files" at opening
>> and then to save with original name and text format, but
>> neither with ".txt" appended, nor even worse, converted to
>> document format.
>>
>> This is why I think that a better solution would be if the
>> vmd.rc on Windows would be installed with this fix included.
>> And possibly also converted to Windows text format.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Pawel
>>
>
>