VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Thu Mar 31 2011 - 15:04:15 CDT

Julia,
  The VMD mouse behavior is modal. So, when you're picking atoms for
creating geometry labels, no user-callbacks are generated, and when you're
generating user-callbacks, no labels are created. This prevents the user
from getting into a scenario where a mouse click causes several things
to happen at the same time...

Regarding your question about the other form of the callback, I'll have
to look into that and determine if the old callback syntax is valid with
the new versions of Tcl/Tk, it may be that syntax won't work anymore.

Let us know if you have more questions.

Cheers,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 01:33:28PM -0700, Julia Doh wrote:
> Hello! This looks like what we need but I'm having some trouble. I found
> an earlier message in the mailing list where you provided to someone an
> example of the VMD mouse callback that looked like this:
>
> proc do_mouse_pos_client { args } {
> global vmd_mouse_pos
> puts "mouse position: $vmd_mouse_pos"
> }
> trace add variable vmd_mouse_pos write do_mouse_pos_client
> mouse mode userpoint
>
> I pasted the above into the Tk console and it does work, however then the
> OpenGL display doesn't respond to my mouse. When I click on the OpenGL
> display window and change the mouse mode I can manipulate the molecule
> again but the script no longer tracks my mouse (no longer being executed).
> Is there any way for the script to track my mouse movement and button
> clicks while using the OpenGL Display simultaneously?
>
> Also I tried writing a miniature callback script for vmd_mouse_pos using
> the formatting of outlined by the manual and wrote this:
>
> proc rotate {args} {
> upvar #0 $varname var
> puts $var
> }
>
> proc enabletrace {} {
> eval "trace add variable ::vmd_mouse_pos write rotate"
> }
>
> proc disabletrace {} {
> eval "trace remove variable ::vmd_mouse_pos write rotate"
> }
>
> However nothing happens when it is read by the Tk Console.
> Do you know how I can fix these issues?
>
> Thanks for reading, we appreciate your help
> Julia Doh
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 12:11 PM, John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I think that if you check the button state of the mouse or
> changes to the mouse mode, you may be able to avoid processing
> your routine on every rotation, and instead only process when
> the user stops rotating (when they release the mouse button).
>
> The mouse position callback variable is:
> vmd_mouse_pos
>
> The list of values set therein is:
> x y buttons
>
> Let us know if you need any help or want a callback that
> behaves differently then the existing ones do.
>
> Cheers,
> John Stone
> vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 11:45:31AM -0700, Julia Doh wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I recently wrote a script that calculates all the residues in a
> protein
> > within the maximum y value and the number of angstroms the user
> inputs. I
> > have been using the TCL callback vmd_logfile to have the program
> update
> > automatically whenever the molecule is rotated. However, the
> procedure is
> > executed with every single rotate statement that appears in the
> > vmd_logfile when the protein is rotated. This makes the whole thing
> run
> > far too slow to be useful and we are only interested in the top
> residues
> > of the new orientation, not all the orientations in between.
> >
> > I was using the callbacks in the VMD manual
> > (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/current/ug/node153.html) to
> look at
> > the available callbacks but I was wondering if there were any more?
> Are
> > there any that listen for mouse events, such as a mouse-release
> upon
> > rotating the protein? If not, suggestions on better callbacks we
> can use
> > would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Julia
>
> --
> NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078