Hi Oliver, Thanks for the suggestions! As usual you have good ideas, and as usual I don't completely understand them! Did you know one of the very nice features of ChimeraX for moving by hand an atomic model into a map is that if you press the shift key while doing a mouse rotation it switches to translation, and pressing shift in the translation mouse mode does a rotation? So by just pressing and releasing the shift key as you move the model around you can both translate and rotate. I like your suggestion to allow Z translation, so I made pressing the ctrl key while doing a mouse translation do a Z translation (perpendicular to the screen), and pressing ctrl while doing a rotation will do a Z rotation. I just added this and it will be in the September 9, 2023 ChimeraX daily build. So if you click the mouse to rotate, then by pressing and releasing the shift and or ctrl you can rotate and translate including along the z axis all in one mouse operation. One tricky aspect to keep in mind, you need to press the mouse button and then press the ctrl key. Pressing the mouse button gets you into rotation mode, then pressing ctrl modifies its behavior. If you do it in the reverse order, pressing the ctrl key, then pressing the mouse button then you get the "select" mouse mode which is the default mode for ctrl-click. Lastly, what I didn't understand from your email is your statement that the old Chimera activate/deactivate models is more precise and ergonomic than ChimeraX mouse modes approach. It seems to me they are equally precise and ergonomic, both involving mouse and keys (in old Chimera ctrl-middle-click did a Z-translation). Tom
On Sep 8, 2023, at 7:30 AM, Oliver Clarke via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:
One of the other advantages of this (locking a model) is that it also allows for repositioning of other models in the z direction - z translation of models in ChimeraX is (I think?) not possible, and in Chimera z translation was very convenient, allowing quick repositioning of a model into a map with a couple of quick motions
On Sep 8, 2023, at 9:52 AM, Oliver Clarke <olibclarke@gmail.com> wrote:
Alternatively, a unique keyboard modifier (e.g. Shift-Ctrl) that if applied to all gestures allowed trackpad rotation/translation of the selected model would also accomplish the same thing, but not sure if this is possible...
On Sep 8, 2023, at 9:48 AM, Oliver Clarke <olibclarke@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I know that in ChimeraX the preferred way to manipulate models with respect to one another is using the mouse modes.
This works, but is still (in my experience) less precise/ergonomic than deactivating selected models in Chimera and freely manipulating the remaining active models using the trackpad/mouse.
Is there any possibility in the future (or present) of adding the capacity to “lock" selected models to rotation/translation, to allow free manipulation of the remainder?
Cheers Oli
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