VMD-L Mailing List

From: Anssi Nurminen (anssi.nurminen_at_tut.fi)
Date: Tue Apr 12 2011 - 11:55:16 CDT

Thanks for the help, but it's still not getting updated.

I'm thinking that the problem could be this piece of code that I have:

# If already initialized, just turn on
if { [winfo exists .myplugin] } {
   wm deiconify $w
   return
}

But removing it did not help since now I get (when calling myplugin_tk):
"window name "myplugin" already exists in parent".

So, how do I kill the existing old window?

BR,
  Anssi Nurminen

On 12.4.2011 19:38, Axel Kohlmeyer wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Anssi Nurminen<anssi.nurminen_at_tut.fi> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> i don't know what you are doing, but i just tried it on my
> machine and that was working fine.
>
> the only explanation would be that your plugin script code
> doesn't close all open braces properly and is still "waiting"
> for one or more closing braces.
>
> in any case, you don't need VMD running to debug the GUI building.
> you can just do it with wish -f myplugin.tcl
> and for all the VMD commands that you need to build the GUI, you
> can just define dummy procs that provide the same format output.
>
> axel.
>
>>
>> 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
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>