Starting ChimeraX programmatically with remotecontrol

Hi there, Jalview has the ability to launch Chimera with "--start RESTServer", capture the port number from the response, and drive Chimera with REST commands. I'm trying to figure out whether this mechanism is also provided with ChimeraX. I've read http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2017-July/000113.html and looked at http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/startup.html and http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/options.html#start but so far I can't see that "RESTServer" is a startable tool. Is this, or is it planned to be, possible somehow? Thanks, Mungo [University of Dundee shield logo]<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-home> Mungo Carstairs Jalview Computational Scientist The Barton Group Division of Computational Biology School of Life Sciences University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK www.jalview.org<http://www.jalview.org> www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk<http://www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk> g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk<mailto:g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> [University of Dundee Facebook]<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-fb> [University of Dundee Twitter] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-tw> [University of Dundee LinkedIn] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-li> [University of Dundee YouTube] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-yt> [University of Dundee Instagram] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-ig> [University of Dundee Snapchat] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-sc> We're Scottish University of the Year again!<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-strapline> The Times / Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016 and 2017 The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096

Hi Mungo, Seems like chimerax --cmd “remote rest start” does it. You could provide a port number as an argument to the command if you don’t want to read an assigned one off standard input. —Eric Eric Pettersen UCSF Computer Graphics Lab
On Dec 10, 2019, at 8:10 AM, Mungo Carstairs (Staff) <g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi there,
Jalview has the ability to launch Chimera with "--start RESTServer", capture the port number from the response, and drive Chimera with REST commands.
I'm trying to figure out whether this mechanism is also provided with ChimeraX. I've read http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2017-July/000113.html <http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2017-July/000113.html> and looked at http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/startup.html <http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/startup.html> and http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/options.html#start <http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/options.html#start> but so far I can't see that "RESTServer" is a startable tool.
Is this, or is it planned to be, possible somehow?
Thanks,
Mungo
<applewebdata://ECD0CEED-3DF5-4FE1-BCFF-82548B91B0B8>
<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-home> Mungo Carstairs Jalview Computational Scientist The Barton Group Division of Computational Biology School of Life Sciences University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK www.jalview.org <http://www.jalview.org/> www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk <http://www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk/> g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk <mailto:g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-fb> <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-tw> <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-li> <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-yt> <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-ig> <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-sc> We're Scottish University of the Year again! <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-strapline> The Times / Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016 and 2017
The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096_______________________________________________ ChimeraX-users mailing list ChimeraX-users@cgl.ucsf.edu <mailto:ChimeraX-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> Manage subscription: http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimerax-users <http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/mailman/listinfo/chimerax-users>

Hi Mungo! There is a “Remote Control” tool (menu under Tools… General) and “remotecontrol” command, both currently undocumented, sorry. Needed a programmer to write up this information in more detail. Starting the tool from the Tools menu appears to do nothing other than report in the Log that an xmlrpc server is running, but entering command “usage remotecontrol” will show a bit more information in the Log that might be enough to get you started using the command instead. Currently when I do that I see: remotecontrol rest port — Report REST server port remotecontrol rest start [port an integer] [ssl true or false] — Start REST server remotecontrol rest stop [quiet true or false] — Stop REST server remotecontrol xmlrpc enable [address a text string] [port an integer][timeout a number] — Allow other processes to send XMLRPC commands to ChimeraX enable: true or false …so there are indeed options for REST server communication. I hope this helps, Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco
On Dec 10, 2019, at 8:10 AM, Mungo Carstairs (Staff) <g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi there,
Jalview has the ability to launch Chimera with "--start RESTServer", capture the port number from the response, and drive Chimera with REST commands.
I'm trying to figure out whether this mechanism is also provided with ChimeraX. I've read http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2017-July/000113.html and looked at http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/startup.html and http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/options.html#start but so far I can't see that "RESTServer" is a startable tool.
Is this, or is it planned to be, possible somehow?
Thanks,
Mungo

Thanks Elaine and Eric. I am definitely going to try that out! Watch out for follow-ups on any commands we send to Chimera that are not (yet) supported in ChimeraX... Mungo [University of Dundee shield logo]<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-home> Mungo Carstairs Jalview Computational Scientist The Barton Group Division of Computational Biology School of Life Sciences University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK www.jalview.org<http://www.jalview.org> www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk<http://www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk> g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk<mailto:g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> [University of Dundee Facebook]<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-fb> [University of Dundee Twitter] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-tw> [University of Dundee LinkedIn] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-li> [University of Dundee YouTube] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-yt> [University of Dundee Instagram] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-ig> [University of Dundee Snapchat] <http://uod.ac.uk/sig-sc> We're Scottish University of the Year again!<http://uod.ac.uk/sig-strapline> The Times / Sunday Times Good University Guide 2016 and 2017 ________________________________ From: Elaine Meng <meng@cgl.ucsf.edu> Sent: 10 December 2019 21:50 To: Mungo Carstairs (Staff) <g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> Cc: chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> Subject: Re: [chimerax-users] Starting ChimeraX programmatically with remotecontrol Hi Mungo! There is a “Remote Control” tool (menu under Tools… General) and “remotecontrol” command, both currently undocumented, sorry. Needed a programmer to write up this information in more detail. Starting the tool from the Tools menu appears to do nothing other than report in the Log that an xmlrpc server is running, but entering command “usage remotecontrol” will show a bit more information in the Log that might be enough to get you started using the command instead. Currently when I do that I see: remotecontrol rest port — Report REST server port remotecontrol rest start [port an integer] [ssl true or false] — Start REST server remotecontrol rest stop [quiet true or false] — Stop REST server remotecontrol xmlrpc enable [address a text string] [port an integer][timeout a number] — Allow other processes to send XMLRPC commands to ChimeraX enable: true or false …so there are indeed options for REST server communication. I hope this helps, Elaine ----- Elaine C. Meng, Ph.D. UCSF Chimera(X) team Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry University of California, San Francisco
On Dec 10, 2019, at 8:10 AM, Mungo Carstairs (Staff) <g.m.carstairs@dundee.ac.uk> wrote:
Hi there,
Jalview has the ability to launch Chimera with "--start RESTServer", capture the port number from the response, and drive Chimera with REST commands.
I'm trying to figure out whether this mechanism is also provided with ChimeraX. I've read http://plato.cgl.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2017-July/000113.html and looked at http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/startup.html and http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/options.html#start but so far I can't see that "RESTServer" is a startable tool.
Is this, or is it planned to be, possible somehow?
Thanks,
Mungo
The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096
participants (3)
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Elaine Meng
-
Eric Pettersen
-
Mungo Carstairs (Staff)