Jmol users,

Jmol 11.9.9 will have a couple of mouse-related new features. One that
should be useful is

show mouse

or

show mouse [keyword]

such as

show mouse move

or

show mouse pick

These return information about what the mouse buttons do.

In addition, because underneath the surface Jmol is now completely changed
in how it handles mouse events, in the future you will be able to assign
button/key combinations to all sorts of actions. Two new actions that can be
assigned using

set allowGestures

are related to giving Jmol a "multi-touch" feel -- on certain machines being
able to use two or more fingers to direct the application. These include:

swipe -- with a finger this is a rapid movement that releases as it
terminates. With a mouse, it's a LEFT-button action for which the button is
released BEFORE the motion stops. (Takes some getting used to.) This gesture
produces a sort of Google-Earth action that starts the model spinning at a
speed that depends upon the speed of the swipe.

zoom-slider -- with set allowGestures TRUE, you can now just treat the
screen as a touchpad and scroll through zooms just be doing a vertical
LEFT-drag within a few percent of the right side of the applet window.

Give these a try at
http://chemapps.stolaf.edu/jmol/docs/examples-11/new.htm and tell me what
you think. More ideas for cool gestures? (I'm working on "pinch" and
"stretch" to zoom out/in, like an iPod, but that requires a multi-touch
screen, which I don't have yet.)

Bob

--
Robert M. Hanson
Professor of Chemistry
St. Olaf College
1520 St. Olaf Ave.
Northfield, MN 55057
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr
phone: 507-786-3107


If nature does not answer first what we want,
it is better to take what answer we get.

-- Josiah Willard Gibbs, Lecture XXX, Monday, February 5, 1900